Many Masks
by SurferSquid
Summary: Jorak Zoon is a newly knighted Zabrak in Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order. Sent out on his first ever mission away from Yavin IV, he quickly learns to expect the unexpected, and makes some highly unexpected new friends who, like him, wear many masks.
1. Chapter 1

"Jorak Zoon, it is an honor for me to confer upon you the title of Knight of the Jedi Order."

A few dozen scattered cries of celebration in myriad voices and languages rose up, filling the old stone of the great temple hall that served as the praxeum's Grand Audience Chamber.

Jorak's cheeks burned in embarrassment at being thrust into the spotlight. He bowed his Zabrak-horned head as he knelt in front of Master Luke Skywalker on the dais, his thoughts swimming on what he felt must surely have been the greatest day of his life. It had been an arduous journey as a student—nearly a year, although it seemed ages longer. But he had progressed quickly and learned much under Luke, along with the others, the ragtag band of pupils that was the beginning of the Jedi Order started anew, a flame that had nearly died before it was suddenly fed new fuel and flared up again. It was still only a small spark compared to the vastness of the galaxy, but it was growing steadily.

He looked up at Luke and grinned, and the two men clasped hands as Jorak rose to his feet. "Congratulations, Jorak," Luke said, full of pride for his former student. He had met the Force-sensitive Zabrak on Coruscant shortly after establishing the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4 and gathering his first collection of recruits; Luke had been impressed with Jorak's latent Force powers and willingness to learn, as well as the Zabrak's unusually calm and placatory attitude towards life, made all the stranger by the fact that Jorak was a native of Iridonia, a world not exactly known for even-tempered inhabitants.

"Thank you, Luke," Jorak replied, their brief exchange containing all of the warm intimacy of beings who knew each other less as master and student and more as friends, fellow strivers in learning the vast and mysterious ways of the Force. Indeed, Jorak was only four or so standard years younger than his teacher; at times, it was easy for the Zabrak to forget that Luke knew so much more about the Force than Jorak could imagine, to think of Luke like a brother. Jorak's own clan-brothers on Iridonia had not been so amiable.

"Well, how does it feel?"

"Hm?" Jorak turned over in his bed to see his roommate, Kam Solusar, sitting across the room on his bed, chuckling.

"How does it feel to finally be a Knight?" the white-haired Human reiterated, lifting a dark eyebrow towards his fuzzy, snowy head, which had always reminded Jorak of the zarus-spore puffs that grew in clumpy patches during the ephemeral Iridonian springtime.

Jorak afforded Kam a small smile. "It…feels different, I guess," was the best he could articulate. "I mean…I have a lot more responsibility now. And…well, from now on I've got to learn what I can on my own."

Kam chuckled knowingly. Zorak knew he'd finished walking the path to Knighthood just a few short months before. "You'll do fine, Jorak," he said. "A Jedi never stops learning, this is true. You realize," Kam suddenly said, "that now you're liable to be off-world far more often, right?"

Jorak hadn't really thought of that. The past year, he had rarely ventured off of the surface of Yavin 4. He had been too busy training and learning. What a short time it now seemed to be. And now to think that his life paradigm would shift from warm, rainy mornings, secluded temple chambers, and living, eating, and learning with his fellow acolytes. The entire galaxy was his. Well, in the sense that he would now be able to get out and see a lot more of it, at any rate. Not that there was any implication of pride involved, as he knew too well the dangers of having an exaggerated opinion of oneself. There wasn't much confidence, either, at least not in himself. He had confidence for whatever the Force might bring him to accomplish. He was a tool in the vast and mighty shapings of the Force, that overarching governance of life and balance in the universe. And if the Force called him to do something, he would certainly rise to the occasion as best as he could.

"…Jorak?" Kam's voice snapped the Zabrak out of his ruminations.

"What? Oh, yes…I am excited for that." Jorak sighed. Now was not the time for talking, it was time for meditating. Time for sleeping. As much as he appreciated the Human's advice, it had been an exhausting day and the Zabrak wanted some time to himself. That would be another nice thing about going out and serving the galaxy, he thought. He'd get to go it alone, and not have to worry about teammates or roommates. Not that he lacked the compassion or kindness requisite to work on a team, but Jorak was a solitary being. He knew he was different, very different from anyone else, from his fellow Jedi, and especially from other Zabraks, whom he felt especially estranged from for many reasons, none of which he really felt comfortable discussing. "Good night, Kam." He rolled over in his bed, breathing deeply and allowing Force relaxation to flow through his body, feeling his metabolism slow. Self-sedation was always the best way to get to sleep.

"When do you think you'll get your first mission?"

Jorak's eyes snapped open, the relaxation abruptly halted. So much for sedation. Kam was rather talkative tonight. But that was all right. A few minutes less of sleep wouldn't do any harm. "I don't know," he replied, slightly muffled by the pillow. "Probably not any time soon. I mean…I just got knighted today. What use could I possibly be at this point?"

"You'd be surprised," Kam said. "I was taking out Imperial remnants on the Outer Rim a week after I was knighted. That was certainly an adventure…" He held his tongue, sparing Jorak the details; the familiar story in its entirety would take a good while, and it was getting late.

"Well…it's up to Luke, I guess."

"I'm sure he'll find something for you to do." There was a slight pause as Jorak heard Kam's straw mattress shift. "All right then. Night, Jorak." The light in the room dimmed.

"Good night."

Jorak sat in the cafeteria, eating breakfast, watching the other Jedi with his keen brown eyes as they talked and laughed with one another. The smell of pan-galactic cuisine permeated the air of the room. Luke had recently hired professional cafeteria services—Jorak remembered how the students used to have to make their own food, how he'd always put his order in for plenty of Iridonian snapleaves, his favorite vegetable, whenever a new food shipment was being made. He could fix a mean snapleaf salad.

Suddenly, one of the Human students turned and approached him. The young man's dark curls were tousled about his head, and his boyish grin was accentuated by his earnest green eyes. Jorak recognized him as one of the newest recruits, fresh from Dantooine, been at the praxeum for a few weeks now.

"Hullo," the Human said, sitting at the otherwise-empty table across from Jorak with a bowl of a thick, porridge-like substance. "You're, uh, Jorak, right? Just got knighted yesterday?"

"Yes," Jorak replied with a nod. This was unusual. Was the Human trying to make friends with him?

"It's a pleasure to meet you." The young man stuck out his hand over the table in greeting, pulling the hem of his sleeve out of the way so it wouldn't get in his food. Jorak stared at the appendage for a moment before remembering what it was Humans did with outstretched hands, taking it and shaking it briefly. "I'm Lukatz Arbalest. I was at your knighting ceremony. It was amazing!" the Human gushed.

"Oh, err…thanks." Jorak wasn't exactly sure where Lukatz was going with this. He hoped it wasn't some sort of hero-worship thing. That was Luke's job, to be put on a pedestal as the shining example for Force acolytes to look up to. Jorak would have preferred to stay on the sidelines.

"Anyway," Lukatz said, gulping down spoonfuls of his breakfast. "Luke asked me to tell you that he needs to talk to you. Something about an assignment."

Jorak raised a heavy eyebrow. So soon? Well, maybe it was something minor, like helping Tionne with organizing the archives. That was the sort of work Jorak enjoyed. Quiet, menial, focused on knowledge and information. He'd heard that the Jedi were often misconceived as lightsaber-swinging warriors more than willing to cut down anyone obstructing the path of justice. But that really wasn't what the Order was about at all, he thought. It was about preserving life, not taking it. Helping, not harming. Peace instead of strife. "Oh. Would he like me to come now?" Even though he had told himself he didn't want any hero-worship, he was surprised at his slight disappointment that Lukatz was a mere messenger-boy on an errand from the Grand Master.

"At your nearest convenience, I guess," the Human replied, preoccupied with his food. "He told me to let you know he'll be in the communications room."

"You summoned me, Master Skywalker?" Jorak bowed deeply upon seeing the straw-haired Jedi, who was reviewing a holorecording, his furrowed brow reflecting the pale blue glow of the hologram. The two men were friends, but Jorak believed in showing respect where it was due, despite the fact that they were the only ones in the room and he could easily have dropped the decorum. Entering the presence of a Jedi Master was like treading on sacred ground to him.

Luke flashed the Zabrak a greeting smile and motioned for him to come closer. "I received this transmission from the planet H'ratth, relayed from the New Republic Navy." When Jorak was near, Luke ran the recording again. "Apparently there's been an assassination attempt on H'ratth's governor and she wants the added protection of a Jedi while the police force looks for the assassin," he explained. "Think you're up for it?"

Jorak's eyes widened. A bodyguarding mission? That wouldn't be too bad. In fact, he really wouldn't have to do anything but stand around and look tough, he supposed. Not that looking tough was easy for him, so tenderhearted was he. But the very fact that he was a two-metre-tall Zabrak tended to intimidate people. So he could count on first impressions getting the job done. And if push came to shove, if mind tricks didn't work… His hand moved toward his lightsaber, hanging from his belt. He'd hate to use it, but it wasn't like he didn't know how to. "…Sure," he nodded. Far be it from him to refuse a mission that Luke believed Jorak could handle.

"Want to bring anyone with you?" Luke asked.

"…I'll work alone," came the simple reply. It wasn't meant pridefully, but Jorak felt he really worked better by himself than with a partner or a team. His interpersonal skills weren't exactly all that great. And he truly enjoyed his solitude.

"Thought so," Luke chuckled. "All right, schedule a shuttle to pick you up when you're ready to head out." He switched the holoprojector off and stood up. "May the Force be with you, Jorak."

"May the Force be with you, Master Skywalker."


	2. Chapter 2

Three days. It had been three days since Jorak had arrived at H'ratth, become acquainted with Governor Gratzia Sorcia, and learned that the mysterious assassin was still on the lam. So much for being left alone, Jorak had lamented when he learned that he was to be at Sorcia's side at all times. Even sleep was restless for him, as he had to remain vigilant, constantly feeling out with the Force for signs of disturbance, being sure not to fall into too deep of a slumber.

Thankfully, the governor didn't make his job any more difficult. The older, Human woman was competent and afforded him a great amount of respect, although at times he felt she was uneasy around him. Was it because of his height? That couldn't be all _that_ unnerving, right? There were plenty of sentient species taller than he. His species? Humans were so skittish about anyone who had more horns or teeth or limbs than them, he thought.

Now, she was giving a speech on the steps of the capitol building, Jorak standing behind her and to the right. He reached out with the Force, sensing the life-twitches, the eddies and whorls of energy of the numerous sentients in front of them, the governor and her guards, the clerical workers and bureaucrats fervently laboring in the offices behind them. Beneath that, faint but recognizable, was the soft Force-burbling of the grass on the lawn and the trees that cast shade on the governor's audience, for they were just as much alive as the people that they shared the planet with. A small fluttering fluctuation from overhead; two avian creatures flitted past the scene. Jorak drank it all in. How utterly serene and relaxing this was, how easy to be able to lose himself in the flow of the Force. But he knew that now was not the time. He had to keep up his guard, keep aware for even the minutest disturbance—

There.

_There_.

Something malignant. Lurking on the edges of his senses. It was a distance away, above and behind him somewhere. Its presence was strong enough to tell Jorak that it meant harm and chaos and—death.

What could he do? What _should_ he do, he pondered as he ran through his mental repertoire of everything he had learned in training. Tell the guards that he had located the probable assassin, or at least someone intending to do as much harm, and send them to deal with it? If the killer had eluded their clutches for this long, it was highly likely that this time would be no different. Perhaps if Jorak got a chance to talk to the criminal, he could convince them to change their ways, get them to understand how precious a thing life was. Yes, that was what he would do. Solve this peacefully. The Force was calling him, pulling him to investigate the disturbance. He was sure he could handle the situation better than the guards with their clumsy and random blasters.

Shifting slowly, so as not to make his leaving too sudden and noticeable to either Sorcia or the audience, Jorak placed his hand on the shoulder of the nearest guard. "Keep a keen eye," he instructed the woman, a Humanoid with pointed ears, muttering so softly that he was barely audible over the governor's electronically amplified voice. Of course, it helped that he was at the same time implanting the words in the woman's mind. "I have discovered something amiss and I am going to investigate. Be sure your guard over her stays tight." He breathed calmness into his communication, hoping that the sentinel would have the training to understand that this was not something to panic about, especially not at a public function. Panic always did more harm than good.

Relief was brought to Jorak's heart when she simply nodded grimly and silently took the Jedi's place at the governor's side. Whether or not Sorcia noticed, it was difficult for Jorak to tell. He had to concede that she was quite the public official, he thought to himself as he slid away from the rest of the gathered politicians and stole into the capitol building, his heavy brown robe billowing behind him.

Stalking through hallways, up lifts, past the curious glances of office workers, Jorak moved swiftly and steadily. His concentration was trained on the Force signature, monitoring it intensely; it was in the upper levels. Now he was entering the restricted-access areas, although to someone in touch with their Force sensitivity, "restricted" wasn't so much of a problem. A stubborn security panel? Took some effort, but he was able to short it out—he'd be sure to report the damage when all of this was over (it was unfortunate, but speed took precedence over protocol when a life was on the line). Laser trip-sensors in the hallway? Nothing a Force-assisted long jump couldn't take care of.

He turned the corner, and there she was, leaning against a piping-laced wall in a shadowy hallway, using her thumb to scroll through the contents of a datapad. He bated his breath and froze, analyzing her. Dark plaited hair, scarred, tanned face twisted into dispassionate coldness, black clothes designed to maximize efficiency of movement. In her other hand, she held a blaster pistol. She seemed not-quite-Human, her facial features built slightly differently, parts of her skin tinged with strange hues. One of a plethora of near-Human species, Jorak supposed. He never had really cared to try to tell them apart; most Humans looked much the same to him, all hornless.

He was trying to begin to decide what to do at this point, when suddenly he felt the approach of another presence, moments before it physically manifested, creeping silently into Jorak's view from the other end of the hallway, on the opposite side of the assassin. The Jedi stared in shock at the newcomer. The bucket-shaped helmet with its distinctively shaped visor, the rugged, faded rust-red armor atop a dun flight suit, the tattered crimson cape that flowed like blood, all worn by a being that carried itself with an air of utmost professionalism. It was the first time the Zabrak had ever seen a Mandalorian in the flesh.

Even for Jorak, it was initially difficult to think past the traditional Iridonian attitude toward Mandalorians. There was a natural rivalry between two similar cultures with highly valued fighting traditions. Growing up, everything he'd heard about Mandalorians wasn't pleasant. Still, as a Jedi, and as one who understood the importance of all life in the galaxy, it should have been far below him to make such ignorant judgments about anyone.

But what was a Mandalorian doing here? The armor-clad warrior was now looking around in the dark, searching for something, not seeming to see either Jorak or the killer. Was he looking for the assassin, perhaps? And why? Were they in league, or at odds? Too many questions, Jorak bemoaned, and now was not the time to be standing there like a nerf ruminating on all of them.

Slowly, the woman's head craned up; Jorak stiffened, but she wasn't looking at him. She had her sights set on the Mandalorian. Carefully, silently, she lowered the datapad and simultaneously raised her firing arm, training her pistol on the helmeted head.

Jorak was alerted to the hostile intent in the woman's mind and he propelled himself forward suddenly, throwing his hands back and pushing himself with the Force to hurl his body down the hallway faster. "Look out!" he shouted, flinging himself at the Mandalorian. He wrapped the crook of his arm around the warrior's neck, pulling both of them down as he heard the searing scream of the blaster firing, saw a red flash out of the edge of his vision, then smelled the burnt nitrogen in the air, tingling acrid in his nostrils.

"Ungh!" The Mandalorian let out a grunt of surprise as they hit the floor, the force of the impact knocking off the signature helmet.

What was exposed rendered Jorak speechless out of sheer astonishment: tanned skin smudged with dirt and sweat, a thin nose and lips set into a rounded, scarred face, a dusty brown shock of messy, frizzy hair, tiny braids woven into it at random and framing green eyes looking up at the Zabrak in a mixture of shock and aggravation.

"You're a _woman_," he gasped, in spite of himself.

She punched him across the jaw, sending him reeling aside. "Shut up!"


	3. Chapter 3

Jorak rubbed his face tenderly, wincing as he watched her scramble to her feet, snatch up her helmet, and jam it back onto her head. She ignored him, and instead looked over to the assassin—who wasn't there. Not many beings would be foolish enough to try to take on a Jedi and a Mandalorian at the same time, Jorak mused. "Blast," she muttered, her voice now muffled and obscured by the helmet. It sounded more masculine—she'd probably installed a speech scrambler to further disguise her gender. It made Jorak almost uneasy, as if he were dealing with a completely different person. It didn't help that her choice of armor obscured her body shape, making her seem like merely a relatively short, petite man.

His musings were cut short when the warrior woman pulled a flamethrower out from under her cape and aimed it at him. Reflexively, his hand went to his lightsaber, and he had to resist grabbing it and activating it. That might just make things worse. Best to try to work this one out with words. "What are you doing here?" he asked her, trying to sound more congenial than interrogating. His jaw still smarted—she had a great right hook.

"I might ask you the same question," she replied dryly with her Concord Dawn inflection, nudging her weapon in his direction.

"Fair enough," Jorak said, slowly lowering his hand back to his side. At least she wasn't one of those "shoot first, ask questions later" sort of people. They were well on their way to a diplomatic resolution, here. "I was sent to bodyguard Governor Sorcia—"

"From the assassin, right?" the woman interrupted, tilting her helmeted head in a mockingly condescending gesture, rendered rather comical by the fact that he towered over her. "The one you let _escape_ from me?"

Jorak grimaced. "Yes. I…had a feeling she'd be up here."

"You're a Jedi, aren't you."

The Zabrak nodded reluctantly. The last thing he wanted was to get slammed with ranting misconceptions of the Order. From what he read of the histories, Mandalorians and Jedi had never really seen eye to eye. So far she hadn't seemed to hate him too much because he was a Zabrak, but being a Jedi on top of that might tip the scale out of his favor.

"Okay, so are you going to help me catch her?"

That was unexpected. "Er, well…if you want me to," Jorak stammered, still unsure as to how to best handle her. She was like a prickly orida-fruit, constantly ready to jab him if he wasn't careful.

"_Yes_, I want you to," the warrior retorted, tapping the barrel of her flamethrower into her palm in agitation. "You almost robbed me of my quarry, and the honorable thing to do would be to help me get it back. You Zabraks believe in honor, after all, don't you?"

Jorak just nodded again, trying very hard not to pay any mind to the snide tone in her voice. "…So you're a bounty hunter?"

"_Mercenary_," she corrected him curtly. "The police force here is having a lot of trouble catching this gal, so they decided to outsource. Pay was pretty good, decided I'd go for it." She brushed past him, back down the hall she had come from. "We're wasting time standing here talking. Let's move out."

"How do you know she went this way?" Jorak inquired.

"There's probably still plenty of security where you came from," she pointed out. "On the other hand, she came in from the roof and practically cleared a path for me to track her down; since she's escaping from us, she'll want to take the easier route back to her ship." She put her hand to her visor in a contemplative stance. "Hey Jedi, why don't you make yourself useful and use the Force to find her?"

The Zabrak felt more than a little sheepish that he hadn't thought of that. "Oh…right." Taking a deep breath, Jorak closed his eyes and began letting information trickle into his mind, working to push away distracting thoughts like the snarky woman in front of him. The Force flowed differently up here, likely because there were less people working in these topmost, higher-security levels. He extended his senses, pushing them, searching upwards. Finally, he found the familiar life signature again, scuttling away like a womp rat into its burrow. "She's heading for the roof," he confirmed, opening his eyes.

"Perfect." The Mandalorian jogged away, her cape rippling behind her, and Jorak followed. The soft thudding of his own leather footwear on the metal floor panels offset the harsh, rhythmic clanking of her armored boots. It seemed to drive home the image she projected of herself through her armor, of someone who meant business and wasn't going to take any guff. He couldn't help but remember the look on her face for the split second he had seen it, how vulnerable her expression was. It made him feel like he had hurt her in some way.

"Ah, so…my name's Jorak Zoon, what's yours?" the Zabrak asked as they turned a corner and began climbing a staircase.

"Who needs to know?" she asked bluntly.

"Well, unless you want me to have to call you 'Hey, You' through all of this…"

She was silent for a moment. "…Denva. Of Clan Ladd," she uttered brusquely.

"Denva Ladd, huh? Well, uhm, nice to meet you, I guess" Jorak replied. The Mandalorian was unresponsive.

They moved in silence for another awkward minute, until Denva sliced open a security door and sunlight poured into Jorak's eyes, blinding him after having been in dim, artificially lit hallways for so long. As he regained his vision, he noticed the Mandalorian running ahead, grabbing something from her belt, and casting it toward the fleeing assassin, who was caught and dragged backward and away from a mid-size transport ship with a black hull.

"Vibrowhip," Denva explained to Jorak as he carefully approached the two women. "Bought it during a shopping spree on Nar Shaddaa…also got a great bargain on a vintage bowcaster, and managed to snag a modified gravity generator—highly illegal." She chuckled in fond reminiscence.

The assassin squirmed and writhed on the rooftop, struggling in vain to free herself from the sinuous bonds of the whip. She looked up at Denva, bared her teeth, and hissed in a rage.

"Now, now," the Mandalorian replied coolly, flicking the activator switch on the whip's handle. "No reason to be angry with _me_." The dark-haired woman let out a strangled cry of agony as the cords constricted. "Honestly, you only have yourself to blame. I'll let the H'ratth Police deal with you."

"Hm…maybe we should question her?" Jorak suggested. "Ask who she's working for?"

"What's it to us?" Denva responded flatly. "Our job is done here." She placed a hand to the side of her helmet, activating her comlink. "Captain Illix? It's Ladd. I've got her. We're on the roof of the capitol building. Come on up."

"Yes, but—just because we've stopped one assassin, that won't keep more from coming," Jorak countered. "I've been assigned to protect the governor, and it's better to strike the root of the problem instead of trying to catch every leaf as it falls."

"And _I_ was hired to find the assassin," Denva sneered. "So now that I've found her, I really couldn't care _less_ what happens to the governor."

Jorak sighed. The girl was tough to deal with. But he was pretty sure he knew the way to a mercenary's heart. "If we deal with whoever's behind the assassination attempts, the governor will probably be pleased enough to reward us…"

The Mandalorian thought for a second, and then laughed. "You're really serious about this, aren't you. Fine, I'll help out. Don't really have anything better to do right now, anyway. Hope you weren't expecting a cut of my pay, though."

Jorak shook his head, pleased that at least now they seemed to be on the same page. "Don't worry about that. I'm just working for the good of the—oof!" He was thrust down to the plasticrete rooftop and had just enough time to see a stiletto blade flashing toward his throat before hearing the piercing cry of blaster fire, and the assassin shuddered and let out a final groan before slumping over on top of him. Grimacing, the Jedi pushed her crumpled body off and rose to his knees, eyeing Denva in amazement as she slipped a hold-out blaster back into a pouch on her belt. "…You saved my life," he said incredulously.

The mercenary shifted—nervously? "…One good turn deserves another, I guess," she muttered reluctantly. "She broke a perfectly good vibrowhip, though" she added remorsefully, picking up the torn remains of the weapon and fondling them mournfully.

"…She's still alive," Jorak noted, realizing that the woman's Force signature was still present.

Denva kicked the unconscious assassin onto her stomach and began tying her wrists together with the shreds of the vibrowhip. "Of _course_ she is. Sheesh, am I the only one who uses the stun setting on blasters? Makes you wonder why manufacturers even bother installing that kinda thing," she grumbled. "C'mon, we can't _all_ enjoy walking around being murderers." Ignoring the amazed look on Jorak's face, she continued, "Too bad we'll have to wait until she wakes up to try to get any information out of her—"

"Or not," the Zabrak interrupted, reaching into the assassin's hip pouch and holding up her datapad.

"Oh. Right, that."

"Let's see, here…" Jorak scanned the contents of the datapad. Despite using the Aurebesh, the actual words were unintelligible to him, although they seemed to form a coherent syntax. "…Great…I think it's in another language."

"Hrm." Denva crouched next to him and looked over his shoulder at the datapad. "That's Bocce," she remarked in a tone that was clearly patronizing. "Greenie," she murmured under her breath. "Message to 'Yvaan'…must have been _her_, 'coz it's got instructions to kill the governor…and security codes. For this building, I'd wager." She turned her helmet to face the Zabrak. "Do you know what this means?"

"…Someone who works here, or is at least affiliated with the government, gave her those codes," Jorak concluded. "Bocce's the galactic trade language, isn't it? It's doubtful that many politicians know it unless they used to travel the space lanes. But someone here _does_ know it, and decided to use it to communicate discreetly with the assassin."

"A plausible theory," Denva admitted. "I hope you don't expect me to interrogate everyone in the area for knowledge of Bocce, though."

The door behind them opened again and officers in blue-and-gold uniforms poured out, blasters at the ready. At their head was a dark-furred alien with long arms and a crouching gait, its eyes covered by a light-filtering visor. Its snout wrinkled in confusion as it surveyed the scene. "What happened here?" it asked in its low, gravelly voice.

"There was, ah, a slight…altercation…and…" Jorak fumbled, rising to his feet and trying to explain the situation. He wasn't helped by the fact that the alien seemed to somehow be blending in with its own shadow, and its shaggy outline appeared to be shifting and blending with the air as he continued to look at it. It was rather distracting.

"We found your little pest problem," Denva finished, motioning to the prone assassin as she joined the Jedi. "Sorry about the mess, Captain." She looked up at Jorak and nudged him roughly in the ribs. "She's a Defel," she muttered in reference to the alien. "Their fur is pigmented in ultraviolet wavelengths and tends to absorb light in the visible area of the spectrum. Don't stare, it's rude."

"Wow," was all Jorak could reply, rubbing his side. He thought he'd done more than his fair share of xenobiological research in the praxeum archives, but apparently he still had a lot to learn. Already he was feeling woefully underprepared for this mission despite his training.

The Defel padded up to the two; she was rather short, the top of her head only reaching to Denva's shoulders. "Thank you for stopping the assassin. On behalf of all of H'ratth, I offer my gratitude." She looked at the Mandalorian. "Mister Ladd, the credits should be transferred to your account shortly."

Denva nodded, then glanced up at Jorak. "I'm just glad I was able to help, sir," the Zabrak said to Illix. "In fact, if it's all right with you, Denva and I will be happy to assist in tracking down the assassin's employer. We think we may have a lead." He presented the furry alien with the datapad. "We found this on her."

The Defel looked over it carefully. "Hrrrm…isn't this Bocce? Only know a few phrases, myself…"

"It's a list of security codes for the building," Denva explained. "Unfortunately, nothing revealing the identity of whoever sent her."

"Oh, I think I know," the alien sighed. "Zursj Syndicate. They're only planetwide criminals now, but if they can take out the governor…" She shuddered. "I don't want to think of what'll happen."

"Funny, this place didn't _look_ too crime-ridden when I got here," Denva noted.

"This hemisphere isn't," Illix replied. "Zursj is smart—they've got a stronghold on the other side of the planet, deep in the heart of the Sleentas Nee."

"The what?" Jorak chimed in. It seemed like this mission was getting more and more complicated.

"About six hundred years ago, H'ratth was involved in a small-scale system war," Illix explained. "The Republic eventually stepped in and broke things up, but not before what used to be the capitol city, on the other side of the planet, suffered a nuclear bombardment. The resulting radiation and fallout rendered the area sterile for centuries, and turned it into a vast wasteland, called afterward the Sleentas Nee, from Old H'ratthi, meaning 'dead place'. We don't exactly know how long ago, but Zursj made the Nee its base of operations."

"And you haven't gone out there to purge them yet, _why?_" Denva inquired.

"It's dangerous out there; not only is the desert itself full of hazards, but Zursj's forces are concentrated in the Nee and they surely know the area better than our planetary security force. Not only that, but we have no idea how many members of Zursj there actually are. I don't want to send my officers out there only for us to be outnumbered and disadvantaged."

Denva chuckled. "What would you say if we offered to go take them out, for the right price?"

Illix blinked. "You—you would do that?"

"Sure."

"Then we would be more than happy to compensate you."

"Excellent." Denva looked up at Jorak, who was now feeling considerably less sure about this. What had he gotten himself into?

"How are you planning on getting there?" the Defel asked. "I don't know if there are any pilots here willing to fly into the Nee."

"Don't need 'em." She motioned with a tilt of her helmet to the dark-hued starship behind them. "I'm a pretty capable pilot, and that's a pretty nifty-looking ship. And _she_ certainly won't be needing it where she's going."

Illix looked surprised, but nodded. "If you say so. Personally I think you're crazy, but I won't pretend like I wouldn't like to see Zursj wiped out for good. Hope you two come back in one piece. If you need anything, let us know."

"We're good," the Mandalorian replied.

"If you say so," Illix said as one of the other officers picked the assassin up and the captain and her team absconded, leaving the Jedi and the Mandalorian alone on the roof.


	4. Chapter 4

"You, uh, can't sense any security systems with that Force thing of yours, can you?" Denva asked Jorak as they approached the ship carefully.

"All I can tell is that there probably isn't anyone else on board," Jorak confessed. "But I also don't have any bad feelings about this, so…it's probably all right." Stepping to her side as they neared the gangplank, he ignited his lightsaber, its radiant sapphire blade illuminating the underside of the ship and reflecting off of Denva's armor.

The Mandalorian jumped. "Blast it, what did I do wrong, huh?" she yelped, raising her flamethrower again.

"Wha—? Oh…" Jorak lowered his weapon. "I—I didn't mean to frighten you, I just wanted to take precautions against whatever we might find in here. This plasma blade can deflect blaster bolts." He hadn't realized what an unnerving experience it might be for someone who might never have seen a lightsaber before to have one ignite in their face. At the praxeum, everyone had a lightsaber and trained with it practically every day—it was as much a fact of life as Yavin hanging in the sky overhead. Jorak realized that in his zeal, there were a lot of things he was overlooking. He desperately hoped that his first mission wouldn't fail just because he'd let something slip through the cracks. Being a Jedi Knight was a whole lot harder than anyone ever told him it would be.

"O-oh. Okay. Gotcha." Denva was trying to shake off the shock, but Jorak could tell she was still jittery. "Just…just do me a favor and watch where you swing that blasted blade."

Although she had been trying to appear confident, he had been sensing her nervousness nearly since they met—since he inadvertently unmasked her. He felt bad for that. "Denva, I'm sorry about—"

"Door's locked with a basic security system," she announced unusually loudly, cutting him off. "We've got a case of a simple aurenumerical passcode, no retinal scans or voiceprints required. Give me just a few moments here and I should be able to override the entire grid. Yep, this'll work just fine, nothing a little reverse engineering can't take care of…" she rambled on, seeming to crave the sound of her own voice. Jorak fell silent and let her be. True to her word, she soon had the door open, and they stepped inside. The interior of the ship was dimly lit and sparsely decorated, Jorak noted.

"Wonder where she got this thing," Denva muttered, looking around and feeling the walls. "It's not too shabby. Maybe her employer lent it to her. Or maybe your own transport is standard fare for being in Zursj. Ooh!" She jumped up a little. "It almost makes you want to join them, too, doesn't it?" Noticing the appalled look on Jorak's face, she stared at him for a moment. "I was kidding."

"Or she could have stolen it," Jorak pointed out in an attempt to be helpful. "Maybe the rightful owner needs it back."

"…We'll worry about that after we're done. Found the cargo hold," she commented, opening a door. "Wonder if she's got any food in here…_she_ won't be needing it any more."

It was cheaper than buying lunch, Jorak admitted to himself.

"Idiot's Array," the Mandalorian announced triumphantly, bringing out some packets of processed food and tossing one to the Zabrak. "There's more of a variety in there if you're not into nerf stew. Thought I saw a pack of salted yobas, maybe some dru'un..."

"This is good, thanks," Jorak replied, opening up the packet. He was about to pour some into his mouth when he saw Denva, sitting there against the wall, staring at him with her food unopened. He knew why. "…Sorry," he apologized, getting up and moving into the hold, hoping she wouldn't close the door on him and lock him in. She was quite possibly the most private person he'd ever known. It was a valuable survival tactic, though, in this harsh galaxy of theirs. Reclining on the floor and leaning against the wall, he heard the clink of her helmet being placed on the floorboards.

"I think you owe me," she said bitterly, a few minutes later. Although her voice was muffled by the wall between them, it was now recognizeably female again. Jorak still couldn't shake how bizarre that was.

"Owe you for what?" the Zabrak asked, a little exasperated by this point.

"Invading my space."

Jorak sighed. "What can I do to make it up to you?"

"Well, now it's my turn to pry into your appearance," she remarked snidely. "Where are your tattoos?"

The Zabrak's face dropped. The one question he hoped she'd never ask. He would have to bear that indignity and stigma as long as he lived. For he did, indeed, completely lack facial tattoos. "I…never got them," he said quietly.

"…Why?"

Jorak tilted his head back and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as the painful memories flooded back. "Among the Zabraks…one receives their tattoos after completing their rite of passage into adulthood. I…failed that rite."

"Oh…I'm sorry," Denva replied, her tone considerably softer. "So…you're an outcast, too."

"…Did something happen to you, as well?"

"It's a stupid reason, really," she countered. "And at any rate, I like to think of it more as 'self-imposed exile', thank you very much."

"Hey," Jorak chuckled, "nothing could be stupider than failing your own rite of passage. Trust me."

There was silence on the other side for a second and he wondered if he had inadvertently offended her. Then, heard the clanking of boots on metal grating, and he looked up to see Denva striding into the hold, food pouch clutched in one hand and helmet cradled in her other arm. Her expression was set, her lips pursed, her eyes staring straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge his presence. He sensed her embarrassment, with a good dose of shame thrown in, and so he tried not to look at her and make things worse. She sat against the wall opposite the door and stared into nowhere as she continued her lunch. "I'll tell you, if you tell me," she relinquished.

"I grew up on Iridonia," Jorak sighed. "Ever since I was a child, I'd been…different from the other Zabraks. More patient, much less of a temper, more interested in learning about the world around me instead of subjugating it. No one else really understood that, not even my own parents. I've been told it's some sort of glandular disorder."

"Or maybe it's just you being yourself," Denva pointed out, eyebrow raised.

Jorak smiled. "I think I like that explanation better. At any rate…as I neared the end of my adolescence, I was scheduled to undergo my rite of passage, to earn my tattoos and become a full-fledged member of my clan. I…I still remember that day vividly…" He buried his head in his knees—these were not pleasant memories. "I was to hunt down a wild reek by myself, out in the plains, and bring back a tusk as proof of what I had done. I'd had extensive training in martial arts and was armed with a vibrosword, so I knew I could pull it off. But then…then I actually _found_ a reek. It was grazing with its offspring, not a care in the world. And that was when I realized…I couldn't do it. I couldn't snuff out a life and leave other innocent beings to die just to prove some nebulous concept of self-worth. So I returned…empty-handed. And they rejected me, as I knew they would." He heaved another sigh. "From then on…it was just me. No more home. No more clan. No more _species_. I am, for all intents and purpose, a failed Zabrak." He sat up suddenly and dabbed away welling tears with the sleeve of his robe. "I'm sorry…you didn't need to see that."

"You're not a failure," Denva said in a low, steady voice, looking at him with a piercing gaze, and he could sense something swelling within her, some sort of burning feeling—could it possibly be _admiration?_ "You did what you knew to be right, regardless of the consequences. That is not failure. That is courage of the highest degree."

"…Thank you. I suppose you're right. You know, that sounds much like something Master Skywalker would say," Jorak noted.

"Master-_Luke? Luke Skywalker?_" Denva gaped. "You know _the_ Luke Skywalker?"

The Zabrak grinned. "I _am_ a Jedi. Your turn now."

"Right…" The Mandalorian shifted uneasily. "Well, compared to what you've been through, my story's pretty selfish in comparison. I was born and spent my childhood on Mandalore. Learned the _Mando'ade_ way from my mother and father. They taught me how to shoot a blaster, wield a vibroblade, command troops, and fly a ship. They taught me honor, strength, and loyalty. And that was all they taught me." She smiled bittersweetly. "But they also let me read. And I read voraciously. You know what my favorite subjects were? History and philosophy. That's a dangerous combination, for a warrior. Makes you think too much. And I did my share of thinking, let me tell you." Her eyes glazed over with a distant look. "I can't really remember why, or how it happened, but…one day, as I was sitting there researching the New Sith Wars, I realized…war is so _stupid_." She looked up at Jorak to gauge his reaction.

The Jedi smiled at her. "You know…I never thought I'd hear a Mandalorian speak negatively of war," he commented.

"Exactly," Denva replied. "War is a Mandalorian's life. Do you realize, my ancestors were poised to take over the galaxy four thousand years ago? And do you realize how that made me feel, that we were the cause of so much needless death and suffering?" She clenched her fists. "So I started to fight it. It was subtle, at first. I stopped appreciating the glorified history of the Mandalorians, for example, in which every planet conquered was merely another trophy in our pocket, with absolutely no regard to the lives of that planet's inhabitants. I'd excuse myself from conversations when the topic turned to war. Small things like that. Then I decided to strike harder. In school, we were assigned to write on our favorite war…and I turned it around completely. I used that essay as a chance to finally vent everything I felt about the nature of war and peace." She paused and smiled weakly. "You know what happened when I turned it in? The teacher deleted it in my face. Then she blew up at me, totally snapped and started shouting at me in front of the entire class about how wrong I was."

"What did you do?" Jorak asked, breathless.

"Heh…well…let's just say she wasn't able to teach for a while after that. But that event…it was the turning point of my life. My parents disowned me. I finally realized that my opinions would never be accepted among my own people. So…I left Mandalore behind. Hopefully forever."

"…How old were you?" the Zabrak asked.

"Fifteen…just a few months after I got this armor. That was ten years ago. I've been doing mercenary jobs across the galaxy ever since. Made sure to steer clear of the Civil War, of course."

"…So you're only two standard years younger than me. You don't look old enough to be twenty-five."

"I know, I know," Denva grumbled, running a gloved hand through her hair in frustration. "I've got this idiotic baby-face, and it annoys me to no end. Hence the helmet. I also happen to greatly enjoy my anonymity.

"And that's why you wear a male's set of armor."

"Yeah. I don't want anyone seeing me and thinking 'there goes a woman', but 'there goes Denva Ladd, mercenary extraordinaire'." She frowned. "Not that it matters much, I guess. I'm kind of an ex-Mandalorian, myself. Man, I'm a real idiot, aren't I. I ran away. Sometimes I think that's all I'm good at doing."

"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself," Jorak assured her. "Didn't you just get done telling me that you have to follow your own conscience?" He smiled. "Don't pretend like that doesn't apply to you, too."

This made her chuckle. "So now you're turning my own words against me, huh, Jor?" she teased.

"…'Jor'?" The Zabrak looked at her quizzically.

"You know…'Jorak', 'Jor'? It's a nickname. Are Jedi even allowed to have nicknames?"

"Of course, it's just…nobody's ever given me one before," he explained. "I wasn't expecting it, but…it's kind of nice."

"I know what you mean," Denva sighed. "I guess I like having someone to talk to again. Especially someone who doesn't try to make a point of tearing away at my philosophical views."

"I'm glad I could help, then," Jorak said. "…I think I needed someone to talk to, as well. Hey…if you call me Jor, can I call you Den?"

She smirked. "Sounds like a fair trade. Not in public, though." She looked down at her helmet, wedged between her boots. "When the helmet goes on, 'Den' becomes Denva Ladd, business-minded mercenary and total enigma. Got it?"

"You have my solemn oath as a Jedi Knight, milady. I will not betray you."

Denva laughed. "Thanks, Jor. That means a lot to me. It's sort of a relief to be able to share secrets with somebody."

"Likewise," the Zabrak replied.

The Mandalorian finished off the food packet, then rose to her feet and sat down next to Jorak. "Blast it, Jor," she grumbled, frowning as she rested her head in her hands. "I'm sorry I was such a nerf-herder to you earlier. A nice _vod_ like you doesn't deserve to get snarked at like that."

"It's all right." He grinned. "Gotta keep up appearances, am I correct?"

"That's the gist of it," she concurred. "If you've got a witty comeback for everything, people are less likely to think they can mess with you. It's part of 'the image', I guess. But when I mouthed off to you…it just makes me feel bad, thinking about it."

"Hey, it's okay," Jorak reiterated, tentatively reaching out and putting his hand on her armored shoulder. "I understand now why you're doing it. It's a self-defence mechanism."

She nodded, although she flinched slightly at his touch and he withdrew, sensing a jolt of panic run through her mind. "Force of habit, I suppose. So, I guess we're our own band of misfits now, huh?" she chortled.

"I'd hardly call two a 'band'," the Zabrak replied, somewhat surprised at her abrupt camaraderie.

"Well, unless we happen to come across an intelligent Gamorrean, I think we're the only misfits we're going to find," Denva joked, prompting a laugh from Jorak as well. She looked over at him, her mirth turning into thoughtfulness. "Jor…why did you save my life back there?" she asked. "You could have easily let the assassin take me down, but instead you risked your own hide to save mine."

"I couldn't have let her kill someone unawares," Jorak explained. "That would have been completely merciless. Besides, the Force compelled me to."

"The Force, huh…what's that feel like?"

Jorak didn't know what the Force could _not_ feel like. Even when he wasn't a Jedi, he'd been unconsciously using it to survive. It was strange to think that most other beings didn't have that connection to the flow of life that he did. "Hm…well…it sort of feels like…a _feeling_," he articulated.

"'Feels like a feeling', huh," Denva poked.

"It's difficult to explain. But it's almost like another sense besides the basic five that most sentients have. It lets you feel life energy. But it also lets you use it…lets you draw on it to accomplish things you never dreamed you could." As an example, he set his lightsaber on the floor and held out his hand, feeling the Force flow through him and to the object of his concentration. He raised his arm, and the lightsaber levitated for a few seconds before he pulled it back to him and placed it back on his belt.

Denva raised her eyebrows. "Never actually seen anything like that before," she muttered under her breath. She was silent for a few moments, and then she pushed herself to her feet, collecting her helmet under the crook of her arm. "Well, I think we've had long enough of a lunch break. We need to get going. You don't get motion sick on a full stomach, do you? Ah well, can't be helped now," she rambled as she made her way down the hall and to the cockpit.

Jorak followed her and strapped himself in to the navigator's seat. "So, uh, how good of a pilot _are_ you, exactly?"

"Passable, I guess," Denva admitted. "I'm good but I'm not great, if that's what you mean. I'm not some daredevil starfighter pilot but I like to think I can hold my own in a dogfight."

"…In a _transport ship?_" Jorak queried dubiously.

"Not bad specs for a transport ship, in all honesty," the Mandalorian replied, leaning on the dashboard and turning on a few of the displays. "Going to need lots more weapons, though, if it's going to serve as my personal base." She grinned maniacally. "_Lots_ more weapons."


	5. Chapter 5

The flight to the Sleentas Nee took the better part of the afternoon, but, as Denva pointed out, it was better to go in at night anyway. Unsurprisingly, what the ship lacked in weaponry it more than made up for in cloaking, considering the fact that it had been able to land on the roof of the capitol building unnoticed; the perfect mode of transport for an assassin. Jorak also had the sense to realize that they were expecting the assassin to return, anyway, and it was doubtful they'd shoot down one of their own ships on sight.

After Denva plotted the route and put the vehicle on autopilot, they passed the time by thoroughly inspecting the craft, discovering that it was outfitted with hidden storage panels for smuggling contraband; the Mandalorian admitted that smuggling had never been her thing but it was perfect for storing the items in her weapons cache that were less-than-legal, which before now she had been keeping in a no-questions-asked storage facility on Coruscant. There were also two small dormitories, a refresher, and a tiny galley module set into the storage bay. All in all, she was thoroughly pleased.

"It needs a name," she decided, placing her hands on her hips contemplatively. "Something cool."

"I probably shouldn't even start to make suggestions," Jorak deferred humbly as Denva began spouting off a random list of words in Basic and Mandalorian, trying different combinations on her tongue to see what she liked best.

"_Fearsome_, _Ve'vut_, _Valorous, Crimson, Crimson Dawn, Crimson Kal, Crimson_ _Beviin_…" she rambled.

"Is this usual Mandalorian naming custom?"

"Only for Mandalorians who like their ships' names to count for something. Don't interrupt," Denva snapped. "Now, where was I…_Crimson_ _Parjiir_, hm, no…_Crimson_ _Orar_. Yes. Perfect." She clucked her tongue fondly and rapped her gloved knuckles on the hull before looking over at Jorak. "It means 'thunder' in Basic. '_Crimson Thunder_'. Has a nice ring to it, eh?"

The Zabrak nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, yes, definitely."

Denva laughed. "Be honest, Jor."

"Well, it's not my ship," he began sheepishly, scratching the back of his head, "so you can name it whatever you want. And I don't really have a preference. But, uh…thunder's a _noise_," he pointed out. "It can't exactly have a _color_."

Denva's eyes narrowed and she folded her arms. "Oh, phooey on that. It sounds awesome. I need to give it a better paint job when we're done with this, too. I'm thinking…red and gold."

They had dinner in the cockpit, more stew packets, which seemed to be the only real meals in the hold; of course, that would make sense if the assassin had just taken the ship out for a quick mission. Neither of them said anything, but they both knew that if they didn't stop Zursj fast, or find another source of food, they would be in trouble. Work was always less pleasant on an empty stomach. As they ate, they sat back and watched the sun set over the passing landscape, which was now a twisted and dry, ash-grey vista of tortured rocky hills and dry riverbeds. It seemed a world away from the lush capitol.

It was dusk when they finally arrived—they knew they were there because it was incredibly difficult to miss the immense city-monolith rising cubical and jagged out of the desert flats, looking like a crushed landspeeder at a junkyard, or like someone had taken an impossibly huge rusty vibroblade and savagely sawed out a cross-section of Coruscant. Many-storied buildings were clustered together, stark and cold in the purple dusk as though they were trying to huddle together for warmth to survive the bitter chill of the desert night. All sorts of strange shapes jutted out from the flat-topped roofs, while arrayed around the outer walls of the buildings were large flat ferrocrete pads placed at varying levels.

Denva began to ease the ship toward an unoccupied one when she turned and looked at Jorak. "_Ner vod_, you're gonna stick out like a sore thumb. A sore, Force-sensitive thumb."

Jorak noticed that she was looking him up and down and he glanced at his robes, which were extremely traditional after the manner of Master Skywalker's. He grimaced. "Yeah, I see your point… But hey, maybe nobody remembers what Jedi look like. Or maybe they won't ask questions, especially since I am hanging around with a Mandalorian."

Said Mandalorian sighed. "I hope so. Who knows, in this kinda place. I guess as long as you don't prance around like a moron trying to be a hero-"

"Excuse me!" Both of them jumped from the sudden interjection of a tinny voice over the comm, an irate-sounding protocol droid. "Please refrain from attempting to park on Master Lotzi's private landing pad!"

"Err, uh, sorry," Denva stammered, jerking the ship away in a manner that made Jorak nearly fall out of his seat with a yelp. "Probably don't want to start off by getting on anyone's bad side. That could make this mission a lot nastier than it has to be."

Thankfully, the next pad they tried seemed to be public, although as they made their way down the gangplank they were halted by a scuzzy-looking Sullustan with a five o' clock shadow. "'Oy, 'oy, 'oy!" he drawled, staggering over to them. "Five hundred creds, up front, an' a hundred per hour after!"

"That seems a little steep…" Jorak pointed out.

"Guy's gotta make a livin' somehow!"

"A hundred up front and fifty per day," Denva growled in her artificial male-voice. "That's my next-to-final offer."

The Sullustan hiccoughed. "What's yer _final_ offer?"

He suddenly found the barrel of a flamethrower pointed at his face. "_This_."

"I'll…take yer previous offer," the alien gulped.

"Good man," Denva grunted, taking out her datapad and transferring the money to the landing pad's repository as she and Jorak walked away.

"That still seemed way too high," the Zabrak noted as they walked toward the doors that would lead them into the city's innards.

"Yeah, and he's probably gonna spend it all on spice and at the cantina, but that's a lot more than he usually gets, I'll bet. You have to haggle with those kinds of people, they know their asking price is too high and they're just trying to goad you. You've never had to deal with that?"

"I, uh…this isn't usually the kind of place I go," Jorak admitted sheepishly, the fish-out-of-water feeling suddenly hitting him hard as the rusty doors slid open onto a multilayered labyrinth of unkempt walkways and stairwells, with garish neon signs announcing the presence of cantinas and gambling dens and other shady establishments, while leaky pipes ran along the ceilings and crisscrossed nearly every open space. The smell alone was unbearable, and looking up Jorak wasn't sure if anyone could ever see the sky here even in the daytime. He made a face.

"Really? What kinda missions does your Order have you go on usually, shiny diplomatic ones?"

"Um…actually…" Jorak fidgeted, rocking back and forth on his heels. "This is…sort of…my first mission. Ever."

Denva's shoulders slumped. "You're kidding. I'm stuck with some guy who's just rolled off the back of the Jedi Farms speeder."

"Hey, I've had training," he protested meekly. "I know how to use a lightsaber."

"And I'll be blasted if that's _all_ you know how to do," she muttered under her breath. "Well, come on. Might as well make ourselves useful here. First step would be to start gathering information, I guess."

"Do you have to self-narrate? It's making us pretty obvious."

The Mandalorian paused and put a finger to her helmet contemplatively. "Oh yeah, I guess it is." She sighed and looked around, and pointed off the railing of the walkway they were on. "There's a cantina."

Getting there proved to be deceptively difficult. What looked like a straight shot turned into anything but, as they had to walk a while to finally find a stairwell and ended up a level below where they wanted to be and kept getting lost in endlessly branching corridors. Jorak began to feel as though he wouldn't be surprised if they'd come out from an alley to see the cantina upside-down above them, the entire place was so disorienting, and it didn't help that it was night and the corridors seemed to entirely lack lighting.

"I'm pretty sure it was this way," Denva commented when they'd finally gotten to the correct level (or so they hoped), and she led Jorak around a corner; unfortunately, what met their sight was not the cantina, but a dead end housing a few busted-up crates, a few gaping holes in the ferrocrete wall, some stains of indeterminate origin, and the dismembered head of a protocol droid staring eerily and lifelessly at them which caused Jorak to flinch before he realized what it was.

"Blast it," Denva muttered out the side of her mouth. "This place is impossible. Let's ask for directions."

"Good idea," the Zabrak agreed. Sensing a life-signature at the end of the alley, he stepped forward. "Hello?" As he peered through the darkness he could see a vague shadowy shape shifting around.

"Jor, what are you doing?" Denva hissed, somewhat panicked. She grabbed his arm to stop him.

"Asking for directions, like you said," Jorak replied matter-of-factly. He ignored her pull and continued to approach whoever was lurking in the back of the alley. "Excuse me, but could you please direct us to the nearest—"

The shape turned and emitted a strange growl, moving slowly away from the crates it had been digging in and toward the two. For the sake of getting a little extra lighting (and because even he wasn't naïve enough to wander into a dark alley without some form of protection), he whipped out his lightsaber and ignited it (this was why there was usually no need for glow rods at the praxeum).

As soon as he did so, the blade's brilliant blue glow lit up the alleyway, and Jorak found himself staring down at a hideously grotesque visage, lopsided, mutated, bug-eyed and generally looking like something from any sentient's worst nightmare. It waggled its ears and let out a screech.

"Gaaaaah!" Denva yelled; she had already been edging away from Jorak when he took out his lightsaber but now she jumped a foot off the ground and pulled out her flamethrower.

Jorak had to admit that the creature's appearance startled him as well, but as he studied it with the Force he realized something Denva did not. Ignoring its threatening gestures, he dug into his utility belt and pulled out a packet of salted yobas, handing them to the ghoulish fiend.

It took the packet in one clawed hand and sniffed it curiously, then looked back up at the Jedi. Jorak laughed. "See? No need to fear us." He glanced over his shoulder. "Denva, put the weapon away. She means us no harm. It's okay, we're the good guys," he assured the distorted imp, who had begun to open the packet and inspect an individual yoba. "You can change back now."

It looked at him again and nodded. "Okay," it croaked. Closing its eyes, it concentrated hard, grunting as it exerted itself. Facial features shifted back into their proper place and the ears shrunk, the skin un-wrinkling and turning a shade of muted green. Now Jorak was looking at a round face holding large dark eyes, and a nose that was cleft down the middle. "It's a lot easier to eat with a normal throat, anyhow," the changed entity decided, popping the yoba into its mouth and chewing contemplatively. Its voice patterns instantly marked it as a female, and a child. "This is tasty. Thanks, mister."

Although Denva's face was hidden, she held the posture of one with a jaw agape. "How did you…what just happened?"

"She's a Clawdite," Jorak explained with a grin, turning toward the Mandalorian as the light from his saber glinted off her armor. "There's one at the praxeum, so I recognized her species' Force signature."

"Hey, uh, put that thing away already," Denva practically demanded, her tone suddenly turning very strong like someone trying to suppress a yell. "No need for it, we're all friends here, right?"

"Yeah…sure," the Zabrak replied, giving her a curious look before clicking the blade away and hanging the hilt back on his belt. That was the second time she'd seen his lightsaber and the second time she'd instantly become unreasonably skittish. Two for two. He wanted to ask her about it because it would be a problem if it was going to make her lose her concentration in combat, but he didn't know if she wanted to talk about it and he wouldn't to force her to. Instead, he crouched down in front of the Clawdite child. "What's your name? I'm Jorak Zoon and this is my friend, Denva Ladd."

"I'm Tyd Lineer," the girl replied, licking the excess salt off of her fingertips as she threw the empty packet over her shoulder carelessly. "You're not from Last Gambit, are you?"

"From where?" Jorak asked.

The Clawdite youngling laughed. "Yeah, definitely not from around here if you don't even know the name of the city you're in! So what are you doing here? Come to gamble?"

"Not exactly," Denva replied, stepping forward to examine the girl. "You sure changed your tone fast, kid. What's keeping you from attacking us now?"

Tyd frowned. "Jorak gave me food," she replied defensively. "Nobody's ever done that before." Still pouting, she moved to wrap her arms around one of his, to his surprise. "We're friends."

Jorak blushed in embarrassment and looked down at the girl awkwardly; this was definitely new to him. "Er…Tyd, why are _you_ here? I don't think this city, uh, Last Gambit is the greatest place for children."

"I live here," she explained condescendingly, as if it were obvious. "I used to live with my mom and dad. But…" Her gaze fell. "A year ago, they were killed. People broke into our apartment in the middle of the night."

"Oh…I'm sorry," the Zabrak replied. "And you've been living on the street ever since?"

"It's not so bad," Tyd replied with a tired grin. "I take whatever I need. And nobody ever bothers me because I can scare them away by looking gross and ugly." Her eyes lit up mischievously. "They call me a demon. I'm the lurking demon of Last Gambit," she said in a low, sly voice.

Jorak nodded appreciatively, while Denva merely folded her arms, unimpressed.

Tyd, however, was driven to impress the mysterious helmeted figure. "Watch what I can do!" she proclaimed, letting go of Jorak's arm and jumping back a pace. Closing her eyes, she balled her fists and arched her back, grunting as she strained and concentrated. Tawny fur suddenly burst out from her skin and her face warped, her ears growing and rising toward the top of her skull. "Ta-daah!" she chirped with altered vocal cords, looking up at the two adults with large dark eyes and a face like a stuffed toy's.

Jorak squinted for a moment, rubbing his chin before pointing at her. "That's…an Ewok, right?" he guessed playfully.

"Good job!" she squealed, clapping her stubby-fingered hands together. A moment later and she was back to her normal self. "I saw them on a holo, aren't they cute?"

"I can't believe this is happening," Denva groaned.

"When I need to, I can turn into other species to blend in," Tyd explained. "I'm just the right size for an adult Drall or Toydarian."

"…You can pull off a Toydarian?" Denva asked, skeptical.

"It takes a little more effort, but yeah. Can't fly, though."

"Tyd, do you know anything about Zursj?" Jorak queried.

The Clawdite narrowed her eyes. "Yeah. They run this place, you know. My mom used to work for them. That's probably why they killed her."

Jorak placed a hand on her shoulder. "How would you like to help us stop them?"

"Really?" Tyd looked up at him in disbelief for a moment, then broke into a grin. "Yeah! Let's do it!"

"You can't be serious," Denva protested. "Jor, she's just a _kid_. She'll be a _liability_."

"The fact that she is a child is exactly why we have to take her with us," Jorak replied, rising up to his full height. "I'm not leaving her to fend for herself, and she obviously has skills that could help us. She is strong, despite her young age."

"…So, you do have a bit of warrior in you," the Mandalorian remarked, noting his sudden strong tone. "The answer's still no."

Jorak sighed. Any other Zabrak would have felt the anger welling up inside of them by now and most probably acted on it, but he was slow to wrath. "Please, Denva. I'll take care of her. I respect your opinion but I'm doing the right thing."

Denva tilted her helmet at the two of them and then sighed, placing two fingers on her visor in a gesture of exasperated contemplation. "You're just as stubborn as I am, Jor. Fine, she comes with us."

"Don't talk about me like I'm just some kid!" Tyd nagged. "I know how to take care of myself!"

Jorak smiled and patted her on the head. "I know you do. Now, we need to get to a cantina so we can scout for more information. Do you know where the nearest one is?"

"Sure," the Clawdite replied. "Hold on a sec." She closed her eyes and shifted again, into a stout, piggish, tusked thing with long, wavy, reddish hair. "Okay, let's go," she grunted.

"An…Ugnaught, right?" Jorak guessed.

"You're good," Tyd replied, leading them out of the alleyway and back into the corridor. "Yeah, there are a few of them that live here, mostly as mechanics."

"What are you, some kind of walking alien species encyclopedia?" Denva asked her companion.

"Well, I spent a lot of time studying exobiology at the praxeum," Jorak explained. "And I'd always been fascinated by it before then. It's a hobby of mine, I suppose. Their different cultures and histories are just so interesting."

"Meh, whatever," Denva groused. "In my mind, 'interesting' is the rush you get when you fire an AG-2G quad laser cannon." She paused. "That reminds me, I gotta route all of the weapons systems to the cockpit controls…"

"What's she talking about?" Tyd asked.

Jorak smirked. "Ignore her, she's crazy."


	6. Chapter 6

The cantina was nearer than Jorak thought—in fact, it was just around the next corner and if he and Denva hadn't turned when they did, they would have gone straight to it, and never met Tyd.

Jorak had never been in a cantina before—they were too seedy, but this entire city was seedy and he needed information. It was still incredibly uncomfortable to step inside with a rabidly private Mandalorian and a little girl disguised as an Ugnaught, a million unpleasant smells mixing in his nostrils. A jizz band was playing off-key in a corner, and various people of all makes huddled around dimly-lit tables or clustered at the bar, which was tended by a Fluggrian who kept randomly yelling bizarre insults, which didn't seem to at all faze his customers.

Jorak swallowed hard. "Denva, I hope you know what you're doing…"

She snorted. "What, _you_ don't want to give it a try? C'mon, it'll be good practice. If you want to do well on missions you have to learn to talk to people." She nudged him forward, directing him toward the bar where all three of them had a seat. "Order a drink first, he'll like you more."

"Uhm…excuse me, sir?" Jorak raised his hand to get the attention of the bartender, hoping this worked the same way it did for waiters in restaurants. "May I please have a glass of water?"

The Fluggrian, who it turned out was standing on a hoverpad so he would be able to work at the counter, turned to him and gave him a sour look. "Yeah, nice to see you too, UNCLE OF A BARE-FISTED BANTHA!"

"Erm, banthas don't have fists," Jorak pointed out, "they've got more like hooves, I think…"

"What're you talkin' about?" the bartender asked, acting as though he had no idea what he had just shouted as he sniveled and wiped some drool from his mouth. He went over to a small tank on the wall and filled a cup with water, sliding it across the counter to the Zabrak. "Fifty creds."

Jorak's eyes widened. "_Fifty credits?_ For _water?_"

The Fluggrian gave Jorak a look like the Jedi had just insulted his mother. "BLUE-LIVERED RABID MYNOCK!" he screeched. "Son, I don't know if you've noticed, but this here's a _desert_. Water ain't cheap!" The patrons around the counter started to chuckle and Jorak ducked his head in embarrassment.

"Hey, if he's paying, I want some water, too!" Tyd insisted, pounding her stubby Ugnaught-hand on the counter.

"Yeah, me too!" the Moogan sitting next to her chimed in, offering her glass to the barkeep.

"And me!" a Cosian on the other side of the bar guffawed.

"I, I think _all_ mynock livers are blue," Jorak remarked anxiously.

The Fluggrian drew himself up to his full height (which would have been more imposing if he weren't only three feet tall). "Can it, all a'ya!" He turned and glowered at Jorak. "This ain't no joke, boy. Fifty creds for a glass a' water unless FIVE-LEGGED FLEA-BITTEN NERF you're a member of Zursj."

"…Unless _what?_" Jorak tilted his head. It was kind of hard to understand the man when his sentences were punctuated with nonsensical insults.

"Unless you're a member of Zursj! What're you, deaf? Pay up or get out. ASTEROID-BRAINED SELF-DESTRUCTIN' LIZARD-MONKEY!" This particular insult seemed to be directed at a Feeorin who had just entered the cantina, and who paid it no heed. "I got other customers."

"Look, I—" Jorak glanced over to Denva—who was gone. Not really having the time to try to sense where she went, but knowing she was still nearby, he sighed and pulled out a credit chip. So much for all of the money he'd brought with him on this mission. "Okay. One glass of water, and just one." The Fluggrian took custody of the chip and Jorak slid the water over to Tyd, who drank it greedily - he guessed she needed it more. "So, uh, can you give me any information about Zursj?"

"Only if yer a member," the diminutive alien replied crossly, spitting into a glass and cleaning it with a dirty rag. "They don't like snoopers, y'know."

Jorak folded his hands on the counter and looked back to the bartender, trying to seem sly. "What if I told you I _was_ a member of Zursj?" At this point, everyone in the cantina was staring at him.

The barkeep guffawed loudly, tilting his head back and exposing his broad teeth. "Yeah, right! VAPIN' HUTT ELBOW-LICKER! Ain't no way you're part of Zursj. In fact, you look a lot like a Jedi from the holos, you know that? You some kinda Jedi, son? I thought their kind was 'sterminated."

"They have made a comeback recently," a Baragwin piped up from a nearby table, speaking slowly and ponderously. "Have you been keeping an eye on the Republic newsfeeds, Landvhish?" Now everyone in the cantina was even more interested in this Force-wielding interloper, interested enough that Tyd began subtly picking the pocket of her distracted Moogan neighbor.

Jorak couldn't figure out if Landvhish meant someone who licked a Hutt's elbows, or a Hutt that licked its own elbows. At any rate the Zabrak was starting to become nervous. "Tyd, if something happens," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "get out of here." The Ugnaught-Clawdite didn't seem to hear him, being preoccupied with her latest snatch.

"Maybe Zursj don't like filthy Jeedai messin' wit' their bizness," a bulky, olive-skinned Rodian slurred with a thick Huttese accent, placing a heavy hand on Jorak's shoulder and squeezing uncomfortably tightly. As Jorak turned to offer a retort, he saw the Rodian's fist coming toward his face and in one fluid motion he dodged aside, feeling the rush of air as the fist whipped past his cheek, and reached for his lightsaber, wheeling it into motion as the blade of light moved faster than most species' eyes could see and created a thick blue-white arc through the air, slicing through the Rodian's shoulder—literally _through_, as it did not sever the joint but merely caused the patron's entire limb, intact and unharmed, to fall limp as he howled in pain.

Naturally, this signified to the entire cantina that a brawl was in order, and it all went downhill from there as drinks were tossed into the air, fists flew, and the grunts and groans of two dozen vocal cords rose up in a cacophony of fighting, the bartender's random insults floating over it all. Someone grabbed Tyd by the back of her shirt and hoisted her up into the air, but when she turned around to look at them, they discovered that they hadn't grabbed an Ugnaught, but some sort of horribly deformed wraith leering at them with a snaggle-fanged maw, and out of sheer surprise they jumped and dropped her and she scrambled into a forgotten corner to wait things out.

Jorak himself was struggling to keep from being crushed under the weight of the mob attacking him, as most of the cantina's patrons seemed to have realized that most of their aggression ought to be focused on the Jedi. For every five he stunned with his blade, ten more seemed to pop up in his path like he was trying futilely to cut through the thick, stubborn brush of his homeworld.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Denva holding her own, grappling with several aliens in succession and taking advantage of their momentum to twist them to the ground or throw them back into the fray. Unfortunately, she seemed not to notice the Dug who had clambered onto the table behind her and was about to grab for her throat.

"Denva, look out!" Jorak cried, kicking a Gran out of the way and leaping to her rescue, bringing his saber down to catch the Dug. Unfortunately, what the Zabrak hadn't anticipated was Denva unsheathing one of her back-mounted vibroblades to dispatch the Dug on her own, which she did swifter than he expected and then turned around to see what he was yelling about, only to see the point of a saber blade swooping toward her helmet.

She screamed rather uncharacteristically and ducked, the blade passing a mere inch from the top of her helmet. "I'm so sorry!" Jorak apologized profusely as she seemed to freeze up, dropping to her knees and holding her stomach like she'd been shot, but as far as Jorak could tell no one had brought out any blasters yet. She struggled to grasp the hilt of her vibroblade, which she had dropped in her overblown panic, but her hands were shaking. Not wanting anyone to take advantage of her bizarre condition, Jorak stood over her, warding off with his lightsaber anyone who approached. He had never seen anyone take so long to recover from a blow that hadn't even hit, and it certainly wasn't normal behaviour for a Mandalorian. She seemed traumatized in ways that her warrior's training couldn't allow.

Jorak didn't know how much longer he could last, when a wrinkle-skinned Gossam came stumbling out of the fracas toward him. "Jorak, it's me," she said, grabbing his wrist, but he already recognized her through the Force. "Let's get outta here, this place is going crazy!"

"Agreed," the Zabrak panted, pulling Denva to her feet and yanking her in the direction Tyd was leading them, out a side door and into another alleyway, where they all collapsed in exhaustion, the sounds of the brawl and the bartender muted by the cantina's ferrocrete walls. Jorak hoped the _Crimson Orar _had good laundry facilities, because his cloak was going to need a thorough washing after sitting in the muck-lined streets of Last Gambit.

Denva was still for a moment, then tipped her head and chuckled. "Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" she asked as though nothing had happened.

Jorak stared at her, jaw agape. "Fun? _Fun?_ We were nearly killed! Why didn't you try to get any information, I'm sure you're better at it."

"Too easy," the Mandalorian replied, waving dismissively at him. "Besides, I got a laugh out of seeing you choke. It was pretty hilarious. I'm really surprised you lasted that long."

"Me too," Tyd agreed, holding up her complement of credit chips like they were royal treasure. "But it was an _awesome_ distraction."

Jorak groaned and rested his cheeks in his fists, beginning for the first time to feel rather frustrated. "So you set me up."

"After a fashion," Denva answered with a chuckle. "Come on, it was a pretty great joke."

The Zabrak paused for a moment and ran a hand over his face. He couldn't get worked up about something like this. It wasn't worth the anger. Often he wondered if he even knew how to be angry, but this situation was pushing it. Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself. "What happened back there, Denva?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "Every time you see my lightsaber, you get skittish."

"Do I?" She put her hands up defensively. "C'mon, no, it's just, those are dangerous things, you know? They're not toys."

"How come nobody's arms fell off?" Tyd asked rather bluntly as she inspected the credit chips one by one as though she were some sort of appraiser.

"Wha—oh," Jorak laughed. "I have the blade set to stun. It's still effective in stopping people. I'm just uncomfortable with the idea of dismemberment. I'd rather people keep their limbs regardless of whether or not they're attacking me."

Denva let out a sigh and sat back against the wall, her helmet clinking on the ferrocrete. "Nice to know I'm not the only person in the galaxy who sets their weapons to stun," she muttered.

"But really, I'd like to know why it scared you so badly. Normally I wouldn't pry, but you just…froze back there, in the middle of a huge fight. You could have been trampled."

"Tyd, put those back where you found them," Denva called over to the Clawdite who was fingering her loot. Jorak got the hint and dropped the subject.

"But I stole them fair and square!" Tyd protested.

"Yeah, you _stole_ them, so it's _not_ fair and square," Denva replied flatly. "If you're gonna pal around with us, you're gonna act with honor even if I have to beat it into you, got it?" She held up a fist for emphasis.

Tyd stuck her tongue out before morphing into a Gossam and trotting back toward the cantina to replace the credits where she had found them; thankfully the sounds of the brawl had died down now that everyone had vented their aggression and couldn't really remember what they were fighting for, anyhow.

"At any rate, you're one to talk," Denva mentioned after a moment of awkward silence. "Honestly I'm pretty surprised that you don't know how to get information at a cantina. What happened to that trained warrior I heard about this morning?"

"Warrior training doesn't exactly equate to street smarts," Jorak confessed, scratching the back of his head (he kind of wished he had a helmet too, so he could lean his head against the wall without worrying about catching some sort of infectious disease from it).

She tilted her head. "What exactly did you _do_ between the time you were exiled from Iridonia and the time you joined the Jedi?"

"Erm…I was a desk clerk at a corporation on Corsuscant," the Zabrak grinned feebly.

"And with your training, you didn't think of going into something like mercenary work? The military? Pit fighting, for crying out loud?"

Jorak frowned. "Too messy. I told you, I don't want to use my strength to hurt things." He held up his large hands in front of these face. "These hands don't have any blood on them. I'm not changing that."

"And yet you joined the Jedi," Denva remarked, a rather snide tone in her voice.

"I thought you said you were going to be nicer," Jorak murmured, feeling at the end of his rope. He thought he was a patient person before meeting Denva Ladd.

This seemed to make her retreat a little. "Oh…yeah, I…I guess I did say that," she remarked quietly, settling herself back against the wall and staring at the opposite side of the alley, which was covered in graffiti in an unrecognizeable script.

"Done and done," Tyd announced, clapping her hands together as she cantered back into the alley forlornly, still a Gossam. "I don't suppose you'd give me some spare creds for my good deed, huh?"

"It's getting cold," Jorak mentioned, rubbing his arms. A sort of dank and grimy chill was starting to creep in and penetrate even his thick cloak and robes. "Maybe we should go back to the ship and call it a night."

"Probably a good idea," Denva agreed, grunting as she pushed herself to her feet and offered Jorak a hand as she turned to Tyd. "I've got something better than creds for you, kid. How'd you like to sleep in a spaceship instead of on the street?"

The Clawdite's astonished expression made Jorak chuckle.


	7. Chapter 7

As excited as Tyd was at the prospect of sleep in a spaceship, she was even more excited to see one. The Sullustan was nowhere in sight when Denva and Jorak, with their new companion in tow, returned to the landing pad, so no one was there to chew Tyd out when she made a ruckus running around the outside of the ship and gushing about how cool it was, and how she couldn't believe she was actually going to get to spend the night in it.

Her enthusiasm only heightened when she was brought inside and allowed to gawk at all of the displays and instrumentation, something that made Denva swell with pride as she explained the name of the ship and how, after this mission, she was going to fix it up real nice with some of the obscure (and illegal) weaponry she'd been collecting over the years. Tyd was very appreciative of this, and in turn Denva became more appreciative of Tyd, going to the extra effort to search the cargo hold for an extra blanket for the Clawdite's bunk.

Once everyone had had a good shower and Jorak threw his cloak in the laundry, Tyd (now back to her normal form as there was no need to keep up a disguise in private) trundled off to the main dorm, where Denva told her she could sleep. The two adults wished her good night as they retired to the cockpit for debriefing of the day's events.

"I'm sleeping here," the Mandalorian muttered from the pilot's seat.

He looked over at her from the navigator's seat and sighed. "You're probably going to have to let her know sooner or later. You're going to be sharing a ship with her."

"Not permanently. With any luck we'll have Zursj taken down by tomorrow," Denva snapped. "I know how to be elusive."

"It's not like she wouldn't understand," Jorak pointed out. "She, too, wears many masks."

There was naught but silence from the helmet for a moment. "I'll think about it. Go get some sleep, Jor. Lots to do tomorrow."

"Right." He eased himself up from the chair and yawned. "Good night, Den," he murmured as he went off to the secondary dormitory. He had to admit to himself that it was nice being the only guy on the ship for the sole reason that he finally had a room to himself. It was going to be bliss to not have to listen to Kam's snoring.

"Night, Jor."

"So, before anything else we should probably get more food," Denva suggested the next morning over breakfast, which was a couple of bars made of some sweetened grain, with fruit mixed in, which Tyd had a ravenous appetite for. (Well, to be more accurate, Jorak and Tyd were eating—Denva of course would not remove The Helmet and had in fact eaten before Tyd awoke.) "This transport's obviously capable of carrying several weeks' worth of food but only had a few days' worth when I, uh, _obtained_ it." The Mandalorian was pacing back and forth across the floor of the cargo hold, hands folded behind her back.

"How did you 'obtain' it?" Tyd asked curiously; she seemed to have caught on to the sketchy tone in Denva's voice.

"Took it from an assassin."

"Whatever happened to '_ohhhh_, stealing is _sooooo_ dishonorable!'?"

"I didn't _steal_ it! I _confiscated_ it!"

"So, uh, food," Jorak interjected.

Denva tilted her helmet at him. "Right. Tyd, you know Last Gambit better than either of us. Where do these gangsters do their grocery shopping?"

"There are convenience stores all over the place," Tyd replied. "Mostly they sell instant, packaged stuff. It should keep pretty well for a long time, I think."

"Good thing the ship has a water recycling system. I'm not paying out my ear for water in this death trap," the Mandalorian grumbled.

With that decided, they left the ship and headed back into the fetid labyrinth of Last Gambit. Tyd, now a Ranat, led them through abandoned flats and down ventilation ducts, causing Jorak no small chagrin at the sorry state of his newly-cleaned cloak. However, even he agreed that this was better than becoming hopelessly lost again, and it was probably best to keep as low a profile as possible (and it wasn't like he couldn't stick his clothes in the laundry again).

Finally they popped out of a vent and into an alleyway. "It's just over—" Tyd began to chitter but was interrupted by a door opening nearby and something large getting thrown into a pile of garbage on the opposite side of the alley; all three of them flinched as glass crunched and metal clanged.

From the lit doorway, the shadow of a female Vultan stalked haughtily; she wore her head-tendrils in an elaborate updo and had on so much jewelry that she tinkled when she walked. She seemed not to notice the three bystanders as she walked over to the garbage pile and kicked whatever she had thrown into it, making it emit a pained grunt. "Worthless cur!" she shrieked. "How dare you disobey me!"

Jorak felt his stomach knot as the Force told him, sooner than the woman's words, that the thing in the refuse was a _person_; Denva seemed to have caught on to that as well, as she suddenly left his side and sped toward the woman. Denva knocked her to the ground viciously, placing an armored knee painfully on her chest and leaning in close to her terrified face, hovering the point of an extended wristblade over the woman's throat. Few things in the galaxy, Jorak thought, were as intimidating as being stared down by a Mandalorian.

"Let them go," Denva growled.

"Y-you can have her!" the Vultan stammered, her voice threatening to rise into a scream. "H-how much w-will you pay for her, I'll give you a d-discount!"

In response, Denva snapped out with her other hand and grabbed the woman's jaw tightly. "I'll pay _nothing_. Set her _free_," she tickled the Vultan's throat with the tip of her blade, "or I'll do it _myself_."

The woman gulped. Slowly, and under Denva's watchful eye, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a datapad, moving her fingers shakily over the screen as she input commands. "O-okay," she sighed. "She's disarmed."

"Good." Denva yanked the woman to her feet. "Let that be a lesson to you," she snarled darkly. "You never know when I might come around again, after all." With that mocking farewell, she half shoved and half threw the Vultan back through the door, and it slid shut hurriedly.

Noticing Jorak and Tyd staring at her in amazement, Denva folded her arms. "I _hate_ bullies."

Jorak approached the trash pile to see a tall, female Cathar curled up where she had fallen. Her eyes were shut, her ears were flat against her head, and her tawny-furred, felinoid face wore a look of sheer terror.

"Hey, are you all right?" Denva asked, far more gently, as she crouched over the Cathar and offered her a hand. The newly freed slave looked up with golden eyes at the Mandalorian and cringed, shrinking further into the muck as though it were a protective nest. "Hey, come on," Denva coaxed. "It's all right, I won't hurt you. Look," she pulled off her helmet and smiled friendlily at the Cathar, "it's okay."

Tyd's jaw dropped. "Why didn't you tell me Denva was a girl?" she asked Jorak. "Why didn't _she_ tell me?"

Jorak shrugged, although he was surprised himself that the Mandalorian would remove her helmet just to console a scared woman. "We all have our secrets."

"Can you speak Basic?" Denva continued, again proffering her hand.

"…Yes," the Cathar replied, slowly reaching up to clasp Denva's hand; once her grip was firm, Denva helped her up, patting her sagging shoulder and then putting her own helmet back on. The woman (who, at her full height, turned out to be several inches tall than even Jorak) looked weary as she stumbled to the wall and leaned against it. "Thank you…am I really free?"

"Free as a hyperbolic comet," Denva replied. "What's your name? I'm Denva of Clan Ladd."

The Cathar closed her eyes for a moment, panting. "…Hiru. I'm _free_…" Her ears twitched and she looked down at Denva. "This isn't some kind of trap, is it? How do I know you're not a slaver?"

"You have the word of a Knight of the Jedi Order that there is no deception here," Jorak announced grandly, striding forward. His cape, damp as it was, still billowed behind him appreciably and he suddenly felt very helpful and important. "My name is Jorak Zoon. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Hiru glanced over at him, the suspicion in her eyes and in her Force signature allaying a bit. "Jedi? I've heard they were being revived…I never expected to see one in a place like this."

"It's the places with the worst disease that are in the most need of a physician," Jorak quoted. He wished he could have said he made that up, but it was a piece of advice Luke had given him.

"Why do you travel with a Ranat?" Hiru asked, her broad nose wrinkling a bit at the sight of the undesirable alien.

"Oh, this isn't—this is Tyd," Jorak explained, as though a name would help anything. He smiled. "Trust us, she isn't all that bad. Looks can definitely be deceiving, especially in our case." He was beginning to feel like the three of them formed some sort of exclusive club of many-layered enigmas.

"Ugh…" Hiru's groan was not one of disgust at Tyd, but of fatigue as she slid down the wall.

"She must have roughed you up pretty badly," Denva commented sympathetically. Draping one of Hiru's arms around her own shoulders, Denva hoisted the Cathar to her feet again. "Come on, we'll get you back to my ship and fixed up. Will you be able to come with us to get groceries, first?"

"Of course," Hiru murmured.

"You're not just saying that to be agreeable, are you?" Denva asked skeptically. "You're allowed to say 'no'."

"I can make it," the Cathar insisted. "I don't want to be a burden."

"I'll take her," Jorak offered, helping Denva slide Hiru off of her own back and onto Jorak's. Despite her height the woman was thin and Jorak had no problem supporting her; he wanted to give Denva a break since she was already loaded with armor and weapons.

Thankfully, the convenience store wasn't too far away. Tyd helped Denva shop for packets of instant foods and things that would keep for a while, as well as basic hygiene items which the ship currently lacked, having been outfitted for a short-term mission. They then made the trek back to the landing pad; out of consideration for their new guest Tyd led them on a more normal route with less climbing and crawling.

"That's one of Zursj's ships," Hiru noted, tensing up, as they approached it. Jorak felt bad for her; he could imagine why she would think she was being tricked, and he wished there was something he could do to console her. Taking a deep breath, he spread peace through the Force to her; she calmed considerably.

"Not any more it isn't," Denva remarked as she boarded the gangplank proudly. Once they were all inside, she took off her helmet and shook out her hair, and Tyd shifted back to her normal self, much to Hiru's astonishment.

"Clawdite," Jorak mentioned.

"They must be rare…I had no idea they existed," Hiru commented, shocked.

"Either that or they're incredibly common," Denva chuckled, "and who are we to know? That's something to chew on, isn't it?"

The _Crimson Orar_ wasn't large enough to have its own medbay, so Denva set to work patching Hiru up in the refresher. The Cathar wasn't badly hurt, just a few cuts and bruises that Denva carefully applied bacta to. Jorak leaned against the wall outside so he could listen in on their conversation.

"Why was she punishing you?" Denva asked; her voice was smooth and low, like someone talking down a hurt animal.

"I…stole food from the kitchens," Hiru replied quietly. "Not for myself—for some of the other slaves, the children. She doesn't feed them enough."

Denva said several nasty-sounding things in Mandalorian. "That does it, when we take down Zursj I'm freeing all the slaves," she muttered.

"You're…going to take down Zursj? How?"

"I…don't know that, yet. But that's why we're here, you know. To figure it out. Ouch, some of these bruises are pretty deep. That snake didn't look like she could hit that hard."

"Those weren't from her…she employs Gamorreans."

Denva sucked in a sharp breath. "Ow. I'm sorry."

"Do you know anything at all about Zursj?" Hiru asked, a little dubiously.

"Um…they tried to assassinate the governor the other day," Denva asserted. "And they created this beastly hole."

"You don't even know who their leader is?"

"Well, uh…"

"Karis Due."

"Anything else I should know besides a name?"

"She lives in the apartment building in the center of the city," Hiru continued. "The entire building is her den and the head of her operations. The lower levels are dedicated to administrative work, and the upper levels are her personal palace."

"That's some good information. Thank you. If you don't mind my asking, how do you know all this? Or is everyone in Last Gambit this familiar with Ms. Due and I'm just missing out?"

"I was one of her slaves until she sold me to Rosad."

"I'm guessing she wasn't a benevolent master."

"Worse than Rosad, if you can believe it. At least with that woman, you don't have to worry about constant threats to your life."

There was silence for a moment. "Well, now you won't have to worry about anything. I promise."

"That might be a hard promise to keep, especially in Last Gambit."

"I know how to keep my promises." The sound of shuffling. "All right, you're patched up; let's get a bed set up for you in the girls' dorm and I'll get you some food. Anything you're allergic to?"

"Not really."

The two women exited the refresher and Denva did a double take to see Jorak standing there. She glared at him. "What are _you_ doing here?"

This confused the Zabrak a bit and his brow furrowed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I just wanted to see if she had any valuable information—"

This was the wrong thing to say. "So you only see her as a source of information, is that it?" Denva asked, poking his chest rather roughly with her finger and shoving him back. "And let me guess, _Jedi_, you only see me and Tyd as extra hands on this mission, right? Then once you're done, you're just gonna fly off and leave and we're never gonna hear from you again?"

"I never said that!" Jorak replied, louder than he meant to. "Stop making assumptions! What kind of a jerk do you think I am?" He had never heard himself yell like this and it was scaring him. He could feel the anger ripple up and down his body and gather in the back of his neck and his shoulders where it percolated and frothed. The Force suddenly felt very foreign and tempestuous. He clamped his eyes shut. "Why isn't anything I do ever good enough for you?" he seethed, frustrated and frayed.

"It's not that it's not good enough, it's just plain _stupid!_" Denva retorted. "If you were more competent I wouldn't have to hold your hand throughout this entire mission!"

"More competent?" Jorak clenched his fists. "_You're_ the one who thought it would be hilarious to use me as the catalyst for a _cantina brawl!_"

Hiru's ears drooped and she began to back away; thankfully just then Tyd came around the corner, saw what was going on, and pulled her toward the dormitory.

"That's not what happened!" Denva bellowed. "At first I honestly thought you knew what you were doing, but when I realized you didn't, I decided to make the best of it!"

"How, by having a laugh at my expense? Last time I checked, friends don't humiliate friends and put them in dangerous situations for the fun of it!"

"You just need to lighten up! What, did your namby-pamby Jedi Order tell you you weren't allowed to have any fun?"

"Enough cracks about the Jedi!" Jorak roared. He had begun to consider doing something that was cruel but at this point it felt too good to not care, and he just wanted Denva to shut up, and before he could really think about what he was doing he'd whipped out his lightsaber and ignited it, holding it in front of him and scowling fiercely. The results were as anticipated; Denva immediately turned pale and stopped arguing, and he could see tears start to well up in her eyes as she stumbled back, almost paralyzed with fear. Somehow, this didn't feel as good as he thought it was culminating to be. It felt far, far worse. He was stabbed by the realization that he had just made a brutish mistake.

At that moment he couldn't stand himself. Letting out an exasperated yell, he turned and ran, out of the hallway, out of the ship, onto the landing pad where he collapsed onto his knees and stared up at the sunbaked sky with clenched teeth, his own tears streaming down his face. What kind of a socially maligned idiot was he? How much of this was his fault and how much was Denva's, and did he really even care about that as much as he wanted to get the frozen image of her terrified face out of his mind? How could he have taken advantage of her like that? _I made a mistake. I'm darksided. I'm a horrible person. I'm fallen. Is there no redemption? _No, that was wrong, he realized. There _was_ redemption. That was something Luke stressed constantly. No one fell so far that they couldn't climb back up. Right now, though, he felt like he'd plummeted straight to the bottom and landed hard.

After a few agonizing minutes in the hot sun, he looked back sorrowfully at the ship, but try as he might he couldn't get himself to go back there. He didn't deserve to, yet. He had to earn Denva's forgiveness, but how? The answer came to him as quick as the question: he had to destroy Zursj himself. He would show Denva that he didn't consider her just an extra pair of hands. He would take care of this mission for her, and she could still keep all of the reward money. Hopefully that would be enough to make up for it.

His resolve steeled, he wiped his nose on his cloak (sort of glad that it was already filthy) and strode into the city. He'd heard enough information from Hiru to be able to figure out _something_, he thought, and the Force could make up for the rest. Stalking down the walkways like a man possessed, he focused on finding the center of the city, on locating a Force signature he could identify with the name Karis Due.

It was almost unsurprising how quickly and easily he found the building, as it was quite prominent, and rather than the ground floor being occupied by shops, it was heavily walled, the only entrance being watched by four burly guards. Jorak paused to consider his options. If Tyd were here, she would probably know some secret entrance through a ventilation duct—but she _wasn't_ here, and he wouldn't let her get involved. This was _his _atonement.

Fortunately, he knew how to handle guards. His training had gone over this exhaustively. "Excuse me, lady and gentlemen," he began (one of them, a hulking Aar'aa, seemed to be female), "but I would like to obtain entrance to his building."

"No can do," the Aar'aa replied thickly, moving to block his way with her vibrostaff. The other three guards followed suit.

Of course, Jorak was expecting this. "You will let me pass," he said smoothly, blinking slowly as he gestured ever-so-subtly with his hand. He recognized all of the species present and knew none of them were particularly immune to Force "suggestions", and it helped that he had always excelled in this kind of thing.

"…Of course," the Aar'aa mumbled as her gaze grew blank; she and the others shuffled aside to let him in.

Inside was rather opulently decorated in an almost ridiculous contrast to conditions outside, with exotic plant life growing beneath multicolored lighting and the lobby's surfacing consisting of heavy, smooth stone and intricate metalwork. The only occupant of the lobby was a protocol droid at a desk.

"Greetings," it chimed in a female voice, not bothering to look up from the console it was interfacing with. "Please state your name and business."

Instead of replying, the Zabrak rushed over and jammed his lightsaber, now on full power, into the console, watching as the blade plunged through circuitry and wiring, sending up sparks. "That won't be necessary," he breathed as he reached around and deactivated the droid before it could utter another word. Then, he made for one of the lifts and punched in the number of the highest floor. The person in charge was always on the highest floor.

Lightsaber angled at his side professionally, he waited patiently for the lift to carry him to the completion of this mission, contemplating how heroic it would look for the elevator doors to open and dramatically reveal a Jedi come to purge the planet of villainy. Unfortunately, what he forgot to anticipate was that the lift would stop at floors in between to let other people on.

He was surprised when, on the eighth floor, the elevator suddenly jerked to a halt and the doors opened to reveal a hazy, colorfully-lit cantina, and more importantly several people in front of him. What worried him was that they weren't shocked at all to see a Jedi in their presence. In fact, they looked like they had been expecting him as they grinned viciously, their weapons at the ready. In the rush of the moment, he barely registered that one of them looked familiar, although why that was he couldn't quite remember.

Jorak frowned and did the only reasonable thing he could think of, sweeping up his hand to shove them away with the Force and leaping over them as they fell, making for the bar and pushing patrons out of the way which of course just made them angry at him and start to chase him as well. He leaped behind the bar as they clambered after him and had a crazy idea; gathering the Force he concentrated it on the wall of ingredients above and behind him and exploded them outward, causing his pursuers to duck as they were pelted with shards of glass and sprays of strange liquids. With that distraction in place, he made a mad dash for a door on the opposite side of the cantina and flung himself through it, finding himself in a dimly-lit hallway with a predominantly crimson color scheme.

Not pausing to catch his breath, Jorak sprinted down the hall, veering around the corner and trying to find another lift. The next intersection had him spying one at the end of the hallway that he eagerly headed for, ready to use the Force to shut any doors that might open along the route. He also made a mental reminder to himself to use the Force to keep the elevator doors shut as well, this time.

As soon as he felt the pricking sting in the back of his neck, he realized he should have been reminding himself to keep alert in the Force for anyone tracking him, too. That was his last thought before he lost the use of his limbs and then felt himself fall backward into a black void, the familiar hum of his still-activated lightsaber echoing discordantly as the hilt thumped to the floor, along with a voice, crisp and female: "You didn't think it would be _that_ easy, did you?"


	8. Chapter 8

Denva wasn't sure how long she had been asleep when she finally stirred awake with a groggy groan. It felt like hours but her mind was in no condition to gauge the passing of time. Usually she would have been more vigilant about such things, but usually she also cared. Rolling over on the cot, she twisted her neck to look out the small window on the far wall (finally, a spaceship designer who was considerate enough to put windows in the dormitory; ships were claustrophobic enough as it was, most of the time). The sky outside was a dusky orange; it had been several hours, she realized. She groaned again and moved back to stare at the ceiling, folding her hands behind her head on the raised pad that served as a built-in pillow on the cot.

She didn't know how long she was planning on staying in here. Maybe until Jorak went away forever and everything was okay again and she could once again be alone, because that was the safest thing to be. She felt like hitting herself because of how stupid she had been to let him into her life. Forget Zursj, forget her pay, forget this planet. She wanted to just take the ship and fly into the stars and find another galaxy where she would be the only thing alive. She began to daydream of a dead world where a cold sea lapped feebly at rocky shores while pale moons rose above the starry horizon, and she would be standing there reveling in her solitude.

A soft knock at the door dispelled the melancholy vision and made her sit up, grasping instinctively for her helmet which lay at the side of the cot with the rest of her armor and weapons (at first, when she had stormed into the dorm and locked the door behind her, she'd flopped down on the bed fully armored, but of course that was far too uncomfortable to sulk effectively in, so after a short while she'd decided to just wear the jumpsuit that was underneath everything). She jammed her helmet roughly over her head. "Who's there?" she called.

"It's us," Tyd replied from the other side.

Denva swung one leg out of bed but then thought better of it. "'Us' who?"

"Me and Hiru."

The Mandalorian sighed and pushed herself off of the cot. Cradling her helmet under her arm, she opened the door to see the Clawdite holding a bowl of instant noodle soup with a spoon in it, offering it to her.

"We made you dinner." Tyd offered the soup and a packet of crackers to Denva who accepted it, surprised. Tyd seemed rather shocked as well as she looked Denva up and down. "Wow. Under that armor you're actually normal." Denva frowned and stuck her tongue out at the child, who returned the gesture.

"You don't look well," Hiru observed quietly.

"I would imagine not," Denva muttered.

"Are you all right?" the Cathar asked.

Denva sighed again and trudged over to the cot, sitting down with the food in her lap. It smelled somewhere on the good side of edible, and she was very hungry. "Well…no, not really."

Tyd and Hiru came and sat on either side of her. "Do you want to talk about it?" Hiru inquired gently.

"No." Denva chomped down on a cracker and tore a bite of it away like a carnivore to hammer her point home. "But…thanks for bringing me dinner."

"Mm-hm," Tyd nodded with a smile. She patted Denva's arm. "You're kind of funny when you throw a tantrum."

The Mandalorian grinned wickedly. "Funny, am I? We'll see how funny it is when you're in the same room as me!" she threatened teasingly, holding up her fingers like claws and causing Tyd to giggle.

"You were saying all sorts of words I've never heard before!" the Clawdite continued.

"Yes, and you'd better not repeat them," Denva poked, sipping up a spoonful of warm, savory broth with rehydrated vegetable bits floating in it. Just eating was making her feel a little bit better, and, well, less extremist.

"Oh…" Hiru reached out and softly fingered a bit of Denva's frizzy hair.

"What?" the Mandalorian asked, glancing over at the Cathar.

"Your hair, it's become such a mess…here," Hiru began gingerly threading her fingers through the tangled mass. "I'm sorry I don't have a brush…"

"Wha—oh, no, don't worry about it," Denva replied embarrassedly. She felt no small consternation at having someone else fret over her hair, which she usually didn't pay much attention to in the first place, but she wasn't in a position to do much about it, wedged between two people with a bowl of soup on her knees.

"I don't mind." Hiru smiled sadly as she carefully took out the small braids and placed their hair bands on top of her thigh. "It reminds me of when I used to play with my sister's hair." She paused for a moment. "I hope she's well."

Denva took another spoonful of soup, scooping some of the limp white noodles into her mouth. "…Hiru, how long were you a slave?"

"About…eight years, I think. I was on a business trip to Aargau from Bestine and my shuttle was captured by pirates." She blinked slowly as though she were forcing away unpleasant memories. "At least it is over now, though. I doubt my old job position is still open, but once all of this is done with I would like to find my sister. I wonder if she's still living on Abregado-rae…"

"At least you have someone to go back to," Tyd murmured.

Denva looked down at her and smiled, offering her a cracker. "Don't worry about that, kid. I've got your back."

"Do you want braids in again?" Hiru asked. "Oh, I think you would look nice with your hair in a bun…" she contemplated, twisting Denva's hair around.

The Mandalorian gave her a plaintive look. "Just braids, please," she chuckled uneasily. "Put it back the way you found it." She was still a little skittish about other people touching her hair and she didn't want it in any other style than the one she always employed.

She ate for a few more minutes while Hiru dutifully wove the braids back in where she had found them and Tyd explored her armor, asking about every detail and weapon—Denva had stories behind all of them. "That's my clan insignia," she explained when Tyd pointed out the red stylized handprint on the right chestplate. "Got that vibroblade from a dealer on Botajef, said it once belonged to a Hapan queen and I believe it, the way that baby slices. Ah, the flamethrower? Had that custom-built on Coruscant by a genius of a Devaronian—that woman is a mechanical prodigy, I tell you. The thing doesn't use napalm, but a cyclical plasma generator that ignites local oxygen at an adjustable range past the barrel…"

Finally, she set the bowl down on the floor and sat back with a contented sigh, feeling better than she had in hours. "You gals are the best friends a moron like me could have," she decided, wrapping an arm around each of them and pulling them in for a hug. "You're just what I needed."

"Happy to help," Hiru replied with a warm smile.

"We're still going after Zursj, right?" Tyd nagged.

Denva laughed. "Of course we are! Can't leave a job unfinished!" She couldn't admit to the Clawdite that she had been contemplating abandoning the job. Seeing Tyd and Hiru reminded Denva of all of the reasons why she had to go through with it. It wasn't about the money any more.

Gradually they got around to tidying up the kitchen and then watched the sunset from the cockpit, Tyd sitting in the pilot's seat and gleefully pretending she was flying the ship. "Do you think I'd ever be able to fly a ship?" she asked Denva, who was leaning over the headrest.

The Mandalorian chuckled and patted her on the head playfully. "Someday, _ad'ika_. I guess I could teach you the basics…"

"Yeah!" Tyd bounced up and down in the seat.

"But don't touch anything until I tell you to, got that?" Denva smirked, lightly rapping Tyd's skull with her knuckles.

"What, afraid I'll blow up the ship?"

"Pretty much."

"Jorak hasn't come back," Hiru suddenly mentioned quietly, causing the other two to look over at her sitting in the navigator's seat.

Denva couldn't bring herself to care. "Good, he can stay away!" she announced loudly. "We don't need him, the lousy brute!"

Tyd frowned. "I thought you were friends."

The Mandalorian scowled and buried her head in her arms, which were folded over the top of the seat. "…I thought we were, too."

"I just don't understand what happened," Hiru continued, folding her long-fingered hands in her lap and staring out at the desert horizon. "Why did you get so angry at him like that?"

"What do you mean, 'why'?" Denva lifted up her head to glance bleary-eyed at the Cathar. "He was eavesdropping! And I don't think I should be blamed when he's the one who pulled his blasted lightsaber on me!"

"I dunno, I think you kinda deserved it," Tyd remarked, turning around in the seat and sitting cross-legged as she looked up at the woman. "You were pretty mean to him earlier. If you'd been bullying me like that I would've gotten mad at you way sooner than he did."

At the word "bullying", Denva's eyes widened and she felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. "You…you think I'm a _bully?_"

"You kinda act like one sometimes. It's almost like you're expecting everybody to be a jerk to you so you try to be a jerk to them first." Tyd replied rather lucidly.

Denva let out a distressed whimper and twisted around, sinking slowly to sit on the floor against the back of the pilot's seat. "You're right, Tyd. I've become what I most hated and—and feared."

"What do you mean?" the Cathar asked. "Are you as a child on the schoolyard, still afraid of the larger child who steals your lunch?"

Denva frowned. "I was one of those kids. Not that I didn't take my lunch back, but…it's like kids have built-in sensors that tell them when other kids are different, and they hone in like homing missiles. And when they hit, they can just be plain _cruel_."

"Is that why you called Rosad a bully? I had assumed you would use a stronger word for that woman…"

"'Bully' is a strong word for me." Denva sighed. "I should have let him cut me down."

Hiru got out of her seat and crouched down beside the Mandalorian. "I'm sure he wouldn't have. He is a Jedi, after all. And your friend."

"I seriously doubt he's still my friend after this," Denva groaned.

"Why are you so afraid of his lightsaber?" Tyd asked, dangling over the back of the seat. "You act so high and mighty but as soon as he pulls that thing out you're like a baby. I saw what happened in the cantina. It makes me wonder if he just used it again to make you stop insulting him."

Denva held her breath, puffing out her cheeks and placing a fist on her forehead as her throat tightened. She hadn't told Jorak because it would have been too easy for him to take advantage of it. She'd wanted to be friends with him at first, honestly, and she'd figured maybe he wouldn't have to use his lightsaber often, or maybe she would be able to function well enough and he wouldn't pry, and he didn't, but something worse happened—she'd pressed him to his breaking point.

Finally she decided to spill it. "Lightsabers and I…don't have a very good track record," she began, her voice cracking. "It was three years ago…I was hunting a bounty on Circumtore and was confident I could bring him down even with the limited information I had been given on my quarry. What I wasn't told was that the guy was some kind of Force user—I don't know if he was a Jedi, or a deranged lunatic who thought he was one, but he had a lightsaber, to boot. I didn't figure that out until it was nearly too late." She placed a hand gingerly on her side, closing her eyes as she relived the painful memories. "I would have died if not for someone else who was hunting the same bounty and stumbled upon us in the nick of time. Thankfully she was the honorable sort and we made a trade—the bounty for my life. I ended up needing a new liver." She cringed, her abdomen smarting at the mere memory. "That was a long, painful couple of months. I almost wanted to go back to my parents, but I had to prove to them that I wasn't a coward who'd come running to them every time things didn't go my way."

"But you nearly _died_," Tyd pointed out, astonished.

"I don't think they would have taken me back in anyway. At any rate, it turned out I'd saved up enough to be able to scrape by until I was back on my feet, even though I also had to sell some of my weapons cache. Alas, sweet concussion grenades. Your loss is mourned," she sighed dramatically.

"I wish you'd told Jorak about that earlier," the Clawdite grumbled. "Probably would have saved you a lot of trouble in the end."

Denva rested her forehead on her knees. "Yeah, it probably would have. He is a nice guy, I think I was just looking at him all wrong. Blast it, I feel terrible about this. Why do I have to be so terrific at wrecking friendships?"

"Nothing was 'wrecked'," Hiru replied consolingly, "only damaged, and it can be repaired."

"How?" Denva asked, despairing. "Has he honestly been gone this whole time?"

"He ran away at the same time you ran and locked yourself in the dormitory," the Cathar explained.

Tyd swung her arms over the headrest as she looked down at the distraught Mandalorian. "We called for him to come back but he wouldn't."

"…I was too afraid to go after him," Hiru admitted. "I don't think anyone in their right mind would willingly try to chase down someone with a lightsaber. By the time Tyd and I went outside to check on him…he was gone."

"You can't be blamed for that," Denva groaned, running a hand down her face. "I sure am grateful for comms," she mentioned after a moment, digging hers out of her pocket and inputting the frequency to Jorak's own device, glad they'd had the sense to exchange comm frequencies on the flight to Last Gambit. The signal beeped and stuttered for a few tense moments, which turned into a tense half-minute, and finally the call failed. She swallowed the lump in her throat and sat back. "Either he doesn't want to talk to me…or something happened to him." Filled with ire, she stood up. "_Blast it!_" she screamed, stomping her foot so hard it made the floor plating shiver.

Hiru and Tyd looked at each other for a moment and then the Cathar spoke up. "If there is nothing we can do to reach him, let us concentrate on what we _can_ do. Let's get rid of Zursj. And who is to say that we will not find out errant Knight in the process?"

Denva nodded rather pitifully. "Yeah…let's…no sense in moping around here, right?" A smile began to creep up her face and she turned around to face Hiru. "Yeah. Let's do this."

"Time's a'wastin'," Tyd agreed, twisting around to get off of the chair. In the process she accidentally stepped on one of the touchscreens on the dashboard, and it flashed red in protest, emitting a vexed warning tone. "Whoops."

"What did you do—" Denva scrambled around the seat and shooed Tyd away, leaning over the dash. "What, systems lockdown? Agh, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, this _is_ a crime syndicate's ship…" she rambled exasperatedly.

"_Was_," Hiru corrected her, standing up.

"Yeah, yeah," Denva waved her off. "And I was stupid enough to not even look at the access codes…" She squared her shoulders and pushed up her sleeves. "Guess it's slicing time."

"Sorry, sorry!" Tyd apologized profusely, dancing away from the pilot's seat like it was on fire.

"See, this is why I told you not to touch anything," Denva grumbled good-naturedly, tossing the Clawdite a grin over her shoulder to show she wasn't too upset. After everything that had happened, getting locked out of the onboard computer seemed like such a minor quibble, and she was positive this wouldn't take too long, anyhow. She only had a rudimentary understanding of slicing, but how hard could it be?

"Gah!" Pretty hard, apparently. She'd never encountered a system this tough to crack before, she realized as she desperately keyed in commands. Might have helped if she'd had her own computer, or at least had her datapad configured for this kind of work. Or actually knew a bit more about slicing. "No…no, that's not it…blast it," she growled through clenched teeth, becoming more and more frustrated.

"Would you like help?" Hiru asked, appearing over the Mandalorian's shoulder.

Denva looked up at her wearily. "…Sure, take a shot at it," she sighed, leaning back in the chair with her hand to her forehead.

"Ah, I see the problem," the Cathar mused quietly, her fingers flying across the display. After a matter of moments, the red warning lights disappeared, replaced by the cool cyan of the normal readouts. "There we are."

Denva sat up in surprise. "How did you do that? Why didn't you tell me you knew how to slice?"

"Ah…you never asked," Hiru replied bashfully, folding her hands in front of her and bowing her head. "I was a programmer before my capture, so…I learned a lot of tricks of the trade. It's always been an interest of mine." She leaned a hand on the dashboard and looked out of the cockpit window at the city looming in front of them. "That's why Rosad punished me. I wasn't just taking food from the kitchen, I was slicing the door's security locks to get in there at night. She tried to change the locks, but…" She smirked, her lips curling up slightly to reveal her long canine teeth. "That couldn't stop me for long."

"Well, aren't you just full of surprises," Denva chuckled good-naturedly.

"If you're so good at slicing, why couldn't you have sliced yourself and the other slaves free?" Tyd asked, now clambering onto the navigator's seat.

"Slavers are smarter than that," Denva replied with a frown. "The programming used in slave chips is highly volatile and is designed to react directly to any adverse changes made in the master hub. If you try to slice into that network and get it wrong…let's just say there's gonna be a whole lot of mess to clean up." She stuck out her tongue in disgust.

"How do you know that?" Hiru inquired, nodding in agreement.

"I wasn't born yesterday. I've been around this galaxy a few times." Even as she spoke jadedly, however, a grin began to bloom on Denva's face. "I've got it!" She jumped up. "I know how we're going to take care of Zursj!" She clapped her hand on Hiru's shoulder. "And you're my key player. Feeling at the top of your slicing game?"

"As good as I'll ever be, I suppose," Hiru replied, looking at Denva uncertainly.

"Excellent. Tyd, do you know where Zursj's administration building is?"

"Sure do."

"Can you get us in through one of your alternate routes?"

The Clawdite thought for a moment. "Yeah…yeah, you guys should be able to fit."

"Perfect. Okay, probably a good idea for you and Tyd to have some way to defend yourselves…" Denva led them back to the dorm and puttered about in her pile of armor and weapons. "Hiru, do you know how to use a blaster?"

"…No?" Regardless of her response, the Cathar suddenly found a blaster pistol in its holster being placed in her hands.

"You do now." Denva looked up at her nervous expression and laughed. "Don't worry, it's not that difficult. I'll give you some basic training. It's set to stun," she added as Hiru reluctantly clipped the holster around her waist. "How about you, Tyd, want a vibrodagger?" She held out the weapon to the child.

"I know how to take care of myself!" the Clawdite insisted, temporarily morphing her face into something misshapen and monstrous as a reminder of her abilities.

Denva playfully pinched Tyd's deformed cheek, unfazed by her currently ghoulish appearance. "I know you do, _ad'ika_, but I don't know if we can count on this mission being all sneaking and surprise. It's always best to have backup." She curled Tyd's fingers around the dagger's sheath. "Take it. It's a gift, from me to you. Let it be a reminder that I believe that you have the strength to wield it."

Tyd smiled. "Well, when you put it that way…" She accepted the dagger gratefully and fastened it tightly around her pant leg.

"All right," Denva huffed, standing up. "We'll set out first thing tomorrow, after we get some rest. You know, Hiru, I could use your skills configuring a better security system for the _Orar_. Think you could program me a system so tight even _you_ couldn't slice it?"

"Ah…maybe…"

"I'll pay you handsomely, of course."

Hiru smiled. "That's sweet of you. I'd really appreciate that, actually. It would help me stay on my feet until I can get to my sister. I doubt my old job position is open any more but perhaps there's a need for programmers on Abregado-Rae."

"Done deal. It'll give you something to think about during lulls in the action, at any rate."

"That it will." Denva thought for a moment. "Er, on second thought, maybe not so tight that _you_ couldn't slice it." She glanced over at Tyd. "Just slightly less tight."


	9. Chapter 9

They spent the remainder of the evening in preparation; Denva gave Hiru some basic shooting training and showed Tyd a bit of vibrodagger technique; both of them turned out to be rather promising pupils, even if Hiru was reluctant to begin learning a weapon. When they finally tired out, they retired to the dorm (Denva included, this time) and got some sleep.

Denva set herself to wake up at sunrise the next morning and sure enough, that was when her mind roused her body from slumber. She took a couple of deep breaths and then rolled out of the bunk, crossing over to Tyd's cot and shaking the girl's shoulder. "C'mon. Let's go."

"Unh…already?" Tyd's large eyes blinked open wearily and she reached up to rub them, yawning.

"Best to move fast, before Zursj pulls anything else."

Hiru stirred, turning over in her own bunk and stretching her claws, one ear flicking lazily. "Right…" she murmured, slowly pushing herself into a sitting position.

They ate a quick breakfast of grain bars and dried fruits, and then Denva suited up and they were on their way. The Mandalorian looked up at the unforgiving skyline looming above them, almost daring them to infiltrate it. It was a challenge she gladly accepted and she grinned beneath her helmet. Today was Zursj's last day to enjoy its ill-gotten profits.

The never-quite-sober Sullustan who owned the landing pad wished them a bemused good morning as they passed him reading the Holonet news at his customary perch inside the doors; all three of them summarily ignored him and he didn't seem to notice.

"I wonder what this Karis Due is like," Tyd mentioned, gnawing on a piece of dried fruit she had saved from breakfast, circular and segmented and striped orange, purple, and green. She looked up at Hiru. "You mentioned she was pretty nasty."

"Yeah, it'd be nice to know who and what we're going up against," Denva agreed as they began making their way through the contorted innards of Last Gambit, Tyd leading the way. "Woman must not be an idiot if she's managed to found this mini-empire."

"Truth be told, I've never actually seen her," Hiru admitted. "Although I was kept in her household, that building is very large and she is extremely secretive. I heard many rumors about her, none of which were particularly pleasant. And then there were the disappearances."

"…Disappearances?" Denva asked.

"Every so often, people would just…go missing." Hiru snapped her lithe fingers for emphasis. "And not come back. Usually slaves, but sometimes members of her syndicate. And it seemed to be entirely random who would vanish next. We were all terrified."

"As well you should have been. That's a dirty tactic, using fear to control people…but I'm not surprised." Denva thought for a moment. "There must be something behind those disappearances, but I'm not entirely sure what…"

Jorak realized that he was awake. He wasn't exactly sure _when_ he'd realized this, if he'd been awake for hours and just never noticed, or if he really had just woken up. For some reason time seemed as slippery as wet soap and ethereal as vapor, and he couldn't seem to focus on anything long enough to make any judgment calls. He'd felt this way before when he was very ill—had he come down with something?

Then he also realized he couldn't move. His body felt limp and numb and all of his nerves buzzed slightly like a comm tuned to an empty frequency. His breathing was slow as though he was still in a deep sleep and he couldn't get his heart rate up. He decided to try opening his eyes, and doing so caused a miasmic panoply of sickeningly bright hues to flood his vision painfully, so he quickly closed them again.

"Ah, so you're finally awake, little Jedi."

That velvet voice sounded familiar, he thought, although from where he didn't know. He couldn't make his mind put forth the effort to recall anything right now (it frightened him to realize he even had to think for a moment to remember that he was a Jedi). What had happened to him?

"Are you feeling any better?" Its tone was mocking and insincere as cold fingers gripped his chin.

"I…feel…awful…" Jorak managed to grunt out, his voice suddenly sounding so foreign to him as he forced his eyes open again. The colors seemed only slightly less bright this time, and he could see shapes but they were swimming in front of his face vaguely and meaninglessly. The thing gripping him was a Humanoid hand attached to an arm, long and pale with a long black sleeve. Past that, nothing registered.

The voice laughed derisively. "Good, that's the right answer. I made sure to pump you full of plenty of sedatives. I admit that even I like to toy with my food from time to time, but you seemed a little out of my league." The hand let go of him, followed by the sound of retreating footfalls. "Besides, I'll be entertained when you have to watch helplessly while I destroy this planet's pitiful government."

"Ngh…" Jorak shuddered and strained but his muscles were unresponsive. The thought finally came to him to use the Force to escape somehow, and he tried to feel it within him, but it was like grasping at dry sand that kept sifting through his fingers. His mind couldn't concentrate long enough or hard enough to grasp the mighty energy that flowed through him, that he had relied on for so long. It was disheartening and devastating, like the loss of a limb.

"Hm, perhaps I shouldn't have used so many sedatives. You're really no fun to talk to like this," the voice said disappointedly. "Oh well, they'll wear off in time. So, I suppose you're wondering who I am, where you are, what's going on, and all of that? I'd be surprised if you remember anything right now. Do you even know your own name?"

"Jorak Zoon," the Zabrak grunted. After great mental strain, he recalled now where he had heard the voice before—he was running somewhere, then pain, falling, blackness, this same tone. Nothing else made sense but at least he'd latched on to that. He hoped whoever this was, even though she probably wasn't an ally, would at least give him his bearings.

"Oh, well, that's quite the accomplishment," it teased cruelly. "You're recovering rather fast, considering what a high dosage I gave you. It's lethal to beings with a smaller body mass, you know. My name is Karis Due; I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of me by now."

"Why…haven't you…killed me?" He couldn't really bring himself to be surprised that he had landed in the clutches of the mastermind behind Zursj.

"Killed you?" Karis sounded gleeful, like all of this was a game and Jorak was her pawn. "Little Jedi, I have so much more use for you than killing you." Footsteps sounded close to him and someone's breath, hot and sickly-sweet, washed over his face uncomfortably. He suddenly found his face being gripped again by one hand, another pulling his eyelids open. "Do you know what I am?"

Once again the light flooded his eyes, although this time it was muted somewhat by a face hovering unfocused in front of his, a pale, greyish, pointed face of a young woman with glittering black eyes and dark wavy hair, and a broad, oddly-shaped nose. Something in his subconscious told him to be afraid. "Anzat." The word slipped out nearly before he thought it, and he recognized the species even though he still couldn't quite remember _why_ he was so adept at recognizing species.

Karis smiled. "Very good." Her smile grew into a malicious grin and Jorak suddenly saw two proboscises emerge from her cheeks and reach toward his face; his eyes widened in spite of the pain, but just as they were about to touch, she retracted them and laughed, pulling away and allowing Jorak to close his eyes again. "No. Not yet, not yet. All in due time, little Jedi. I must say, though, I am quite excited to drink your soup. I have not feasted on a Force-user in decades, not since your Order became extinct. It will be the perfect treat to top off my success."

"We're not…extinct," Jorak murmured, the words slurring together hopelessly. "Were dormant…but…now…coming back…" He was growing tired of putting forth the exertion to even form proper sentences. This would have been incredibly frustrating if he'd had the energy to be frustrated.

"Really? This is good news, indeed. Even more to feast on. Draining petty slaves and thugs gets old after a while, you know. Even if they do put up a bit of a fun fight sometimes."

"What are you…doing…government?" Jorak felt himself dropping off to sleep again and wasn't sure if he should just give in and let himself rest, or stay awake long enough to find some way to escape, even in his condition. This woman was clearly too dangerous to be around.

"I'm glad you asked. First of all, did you enjoy my assassin? I thought you'd have fun putting that little puzzle together. She was the perfect distraction to lead you and the Mandalorian away from the capitol so my agents could stage a coup. Which, by the way, is scheduled for today."

It was then that Jorak recalled the familiar face he'd seen in the cantina earlier and why he thought it was familiar—that was a bureaucrat he'd become acquainted with during his three days with the governor. It was horrible to think that while he had been so concentrated on a single assassin, possibly dozens of other double agents had been lurking right under his and Sorcia's noses. Some bodyguard he had been. More and more of what he'd been doing over the past week was coming back to him as this woman talked, which he supposed was a good thing.

"It's just too bad you seem to have come alone; I was hoping to drink the mercenary's soup as well. His won't be as good as yours, of course, but the soup of warriors is still a cut above the other drivel."

Jorak strained to move again, to no avail. "You're not…getting…Denva!" He opened his eyes again in defiance; although the light was still headachingly blinding, he realized that the colors weren't as saturated as he first thought, nor the light quite as bright; it seemed that the drugs in his system were messing with his vision, too.

"How touching, a bit of camaraderie between two very unlikely allies. It's fitting, then, that you should both die in the same fashion. I'll bet he's on his way to rescue you right now. What heroism," Karis cooed.

Jorak let out a long sigh and slumped against the wall where he had been propped. "He…wouldn't rescue me."

"Oh? Why not?" Her snide tone seemed to carry a tinge of genuine curiosity.

"We had a…falling out." The Zabrak's heavy eyelids drooped shut again; how he wished he could let himself sleep, but there was so much at stake and he hated the idea of being controlled by the substances this woman had put into his system.

"…Hmph. Can't really say I'm surprised. Mandalorians and Jedi have never seen eye to eye. The Clone Wars, what a fiasco that was."

"It…wasn't anything like that," Jorak admitted. "It was my fault…"

"Oh?"

"I lost my temper…I wouldn't be surprised…if sh-hhhe never wants to talk to me again." Jorak had to work to make his slip of the tongue sound like slurred speech. He couldn't believe how clumsy he had been, nearly breaking his promise to Denva. Yes, he was a wonderful friend, he thought sarcastically.

"A Jedi who lost their temper?" Karis laughed condescendingly; she didn't seem to notice what Jorak had nearly given away. "My, but you are naïve. I can't tell you how many times that's happened. Being a member of an ancient order of Light Side guardians doesn't make you immune to anger, you know."

"I wish it did…"

"Not that it'll matter, soon," the Anzat replied resignedly, reminding Jorak of his fate.

"…Why are you doing this?" he asked her.

"Why? That's a stupid question, don't you think? A better one would be, why _not? _I'd like to see you live as long as I have, witness what I have, and see if you don't stop caring about everything except money and power," she growled.

"Are you happy?"

"I have what I want." Karis seemed to be getting more and more agitated. "And soon I'll have even more."

"That didn't answer my question…are you happy?" the Zabrak asked again.

There was a long pause. "Don't think I don't know what you're trying to do, diplomat. My happiness doesn't matter to you as much as saving your own skin does. It's not going to work. I gave up on happiness a long time ago," Karis added under her breath.

"Why?"

"You ask some really stupid questions, you know that?" Jorak opened his eyes to see her crouching down in front of him again and grabbing the front of his robes, yanking his face toward hers with surprising strength. "Do you know how many wars I've seen? How many times I've watched lives broken, beauty destroyed, the same sad songs of betrayal and greed played over and over on hapless victims? How could anyone be happy in a galaxy like this, Jedi?!" she shouted bitterly. "Answer me that!"

"Well…you could be working to _change_ that, instead of making it _worse_," the Zabrak offered, managing to twist his mouth into a smile.

"Ugh." She dropped him to the wall again and rose up, walking away. "Insufferable do-gooder."

"I seem to have a knack for making women angry with me…" Jorak mused from his haphazard position. He was quite uncomfortable, but he couldn't do anything to change that and he figured he might as well try to find some humor in the situation, even if things were looking pretty hopeless for him. He didn't even know if Denva would want to continue the job, the way things had gone. He couldn't blame her if she had just taken Tyd, Hiru, and the ship, and escaped somewhere past the stars. At least she would be safe from all of this.

"I'll say you do," Karis grumbled from across the room, folding her arms.

Jorak noticed that seeing was getting easier each time he opened his eyes. The colors began to look less bright and more subdued, rich crimsons and dark woods instead of the loud reds and yellows he had initially thought the room to be composed of. He appeared to be in some sort of lavishly decorated control centre; plush couches, high-backed chairs, and potted plants were arranged on intricately-patterned rugs, and one wall was made up of an enormous console with several huge screens and many smaller ones. It was near this console's control panel that Karis was standing, back facing him.

It seemed like an eternity of silence, but finally she turned around and leaned against the console, regarding him somewhat bemusedly as though she couldn't decide whether he was the source of all her problems or the solution. "…No, I'm _not_ happy," she admitted. "There, is that what you wanted to hear? I was once young and naïve, perhaps even a bit of an altruist, but the galaxy can make you pretty jaded, pretty fast." She looked aside and ran her hand along the edge of the console affectionately. "…I suppose I founded Zursj at first as a way to get back at that. In a galaxy where everything's so out of your control, it makes you need to at least control _something_. Even you must feel that sometimes."

She took her hand from the metal plating and clenched it into a fist. "It started off innocuously enough, as a smuggling operation specializing in high-end black-market dealings. But I let it grow into much more than that, without even realizing it, really. One thing led to another…now I'm a crime lord." She began fidgeting, checking her nails, shifting her weight. "It's just the way life goes. I like having all this power. And soon I'll have an entire planet to go with it."

"But it's…turned you into something you despised. I don't think you like it…as much as you pretend you do," Jorak panted. It was getting rather annoying having to pause for breath every few seconds.

"It's not like I can change anything now," Karis snapped, suddenly slamming her hand down on the console. "Besides, this is the fate of my species! Do you really think we can get along with the rest of the galaxy, having to prey on other sentients to survive? How would we reconcile that with society?"

"…I don't know…"

She huffed and flapped her hand at him dismissively. "I'm done talking to you for now. Save your breath for screams of terror later. Get some sleep."

Jorak thought perhaps it would be wise to break off the conversation for now; his body was shouting for sleep. As he drifted off into induced slumber again, however, he couldn't help but think maybe he'd made a little headway, and that was a good thing. Perhaps his small legacy as a Jedi would be the repercussions of this talk he'd had with an Anzat before becoming her lunch. It wasn't really very comforting, but it was better than nothing. His only regret was that he might never get to apologize to Denva.


	10. Chapter 10

"You sure this'll get us into her headquarters?" Denva didn't like small places. Even more so when she had been stuck for ten minutes crawling through one, staring at the back of a Clawdite child. At least she had kneepads, though; she felt bad for Hiru although the Cathar woman hadn't uttered a word of complaint the entire time. To Denva, though, that was simply unacceptable. She would have to teach Hiru how to have opinions again. That was one of the many reasons why the Mandalorian despised slavery; it took away a person's individuality, their very will. She didn't really understand why any sentient would enslave another, but she was determined to stop it at every chance she got.

"Positive, I've been here before," Tyd affirmed.

Even as she spoke, Denva could hear the obnoxious dull thudding of distant club music, growing steadily louder. When it finally reached near-deafening levels, Tyd stopped in front of a ventilation grate in the wall of the duct. Multicolored light was dancing through from beyond. "…Seriously?" Denva groaned.

"It's the quickest way in!" Tyd protested. "Besides, this way we can have a little fun while we're at it. Get ready." She tensed and grunted, arching her back and morphing into something long-clawed and misshapen before fiddling with the grate, popping it out of its placement and sliding it aside.

Denva crawled out after her and found herself under a table, well-hidden by a tangle of chair legs, and, past that, the legs of various sentients mingling and dancing rhythmically. She saw a wicked, toothy grin come over Tyd's distorted face. "Tyd, no, don't do anything stupid," she hissed, but it was too late.

The Clawdite "demon" suddenly jumped onto the table, perching there just as a Bothan man turned toward it to reach for his drink and stopped cold when he saw the impish personage leering mischievously at him. The two stared at each other for a few awkward seconds. "Surprise," Tyd cackled, launching herself at him.

The Bothan gave a shout as he was tackled and brought to the floor; Tyd scrambled off of him as people nearby turned around to see what the commotion was and began panicking at the presence of some bizarre fiend in their midst. The panic quickly spread throughout the entire room, not helped by the frenetic music and flashing lights.

"I have to admit, this _is_ some good cover," Denva grumbled as she and Hiru rose to their feet and took off after Tyd, who was scrambling for a door on the other side of the club. "She's great at causing chaos, that girl."

"Indeed," the Cathar replied shakily, sticking close behind the Mandalorian as they ducked through the frenzied crowd.

Thankfully, everyone was too hysterical over Tyd's appearance to pay much attention to Denva and Hiru—as they neared the door, one burly Human man stepped in their path and tried to grab Denva, but she expertly sidestepped him and gave him a face full of Mandalorian elbow before pulling Hiru out the door and into the hallway beyond, which was furnished much like a high-class office building on Coruscant might be.

"Lift's this way!" Tyd said as she swung herself around a corner.

Denva suddenly heard a blaster fire and looked over to see that Hiru had shot out a security camera poised on the wall as they were running past it. Smiling under her helmet, the Human woman gave the Cathar a thumbs-up; Hiru was quite good with a blaster, Denva thought; it was a shame the Cathar didn't seem to think much about pursuing such a useful skill.

Tyd was frantically slamming her palm down on the "up" button near the elevator door when Denva and Hiru approached. The doors opened and two burly guards, a female Velmoc and a male Human, stepped out and shoved Tyd off of her feet, unfazed by her current appearance. The Velmoc raised a vibroaxe to strike her down, but Hiru was quicker and nailed the insectoid between the eyes with another well-aimed blaster shot, sending the stunned Velmoc flying back into the lift.

The Human began to reach for Tyd, and she jumped up and bit into his unarmored arm with the toothy maw she was currently sporting; he cried out in pain and Denva used the distraction to swat him aside with a kick. As he hit the wall, she and Hiru pulled the Velmoc out of the lift and then hopped in themselves, along with Tyd who hurriedly shut the doors and keyed in the number for the top floor.

"Everyone all right?" Denva asked; the ride up seemed to take an eternity.

"I'm good," Tyd replied, dusting herself off. "We make an awesome team."

"I'm okay," Hiru added, although she looked rather shaken. Tyd took her clawed hand and squeezed it comfortingly.

"It's too quiet…" Denva observed, pulling out one of her vibroblades and gripping it tightly in both hands. "She's up to something. Stay alert."

The door finally opened with an obliviously sanguine chime, revealing a luxurious sitting room, one wall covered in an array of screens and consoles. What Denva immediately noticed, however, was the Zabrak lying prone on one of the plush couches. "Jorak!" She ran to him and knelt by his side, shaking his shoulder. "Hey, _ner vod_, are you okay?! Speak to me, man!"

"Ugh…" He stirred and blinked his eyes open slowly, twisting his neck to look up at her wearily. "…Denva? You…came for me, after all?"

"Of course I did, you big lunk!" she replied, patting his cheek. The last traces of anger ebbed away as she realized how happy she was to see him safe. Now if only she could keep him that way. "Didn't think I was gonna leave one of my _vode_ hanging, did you?!"

He laughed weakly. "But…we parted on such bad terms…" The Zabrak shifted slightly. "…How did I get on a couch?"

"What?" Denva tilted her helmet at him, finding that an incredibly non sequiturial question.

"Well, little Jedi, it seems your warrior friend came to your rescue," a silky voice said from behind them. Denva turned around to see a dark-haired woman materialize in the room, and recognized that the woman was wearing a stealth field generator belt.

The Mandalorian growled and rose to her feet. "Karis Due, I presume."

She smiled, not too nicely. "My, aren't we smart."

Taking a wide stance, Denva held her blade in front of her, switching into a one-handed reverse grip and drawing it across her body defensively. Something was still wrong; Karis didn't seem to have any weapons on her. Glancing around, Denva didn't notice anything else out of the ordinary. Tyd had disappeared but there was no time to wonder whether or not that was worth worrying about. Out of the corner of her eye, the Mandalorian also saw Hiru, keeping her eyes trained on Karis as she sidled slowly over to the console. "Yes, good girl," Denva whispered under her breath. She was glad Hiru had the smarts to take her own initiative.

Karis stepped closer, seemingly ignoring the Mandalorian's weaponry. She narrowed her eyes, the smile still on her lips. "Tell me, Denva of Clan Ladd. Why did you take this job?"

"I don't have time for your mind games," Denva grumbled, bristling and trying to look imposing, which was quite the task when Karis was two inches taller than her.

Karis tilted her head coyly. "Oh, I think you do," she purred, stepping even closer, so that she and Denva were nearly toe-to-toe. "Strike your friends down and join me, Mandalorian."

"Fat chance." Denva refrained from moving to attack; she knew what the woman was up to and it wasn't going to work. However, the longer Denva could keep her occupied, the more time Hiru would have to slice. The Mandalorian doubted that being taciturn would make Karis give up so easily.

Karis moved in closer and placed her long, white fingers under the rim of Denva's helmet, her nose almost touching the visor. "No man can deny me."

"Really?" Denva reached up with her free hand and pulled off her helmet, her hair falling around her face, grinning maniacally at the astonished woman. "Tough luck." With that, she swiftly kneed Karis in the gut, sending her crumpling to the floor.

"Awkward," Jorak coughed from the couch, sounding highly amused.

"Shut up!" Karis spat breathlessly, holding her stomach. Denva moved to restrain her, but Karis was back on her feet quicker than the Mandalorian anticipated, and to Denva's dismay the pale woman leaped across the room, headed straight for Hiru. The Cathar was frozen to the spot, one hand still on the console and the other fumbling for her blaster which she had holstered in order to work on the computer.

Suddenly Tyd sprang out unannounced from behind a chair and into Karis's path with a bizarre shriek. She had apparently donned a completely new and equally startling form while she was hiding, and it was enough to make Karis stop in her tracks just long enough to stumble over the Clawdite. "Little pest!" the woman scowled, tackling Tyd to the ground and grabbing something silver and cylindrical from her pocket, holding it above Tyd's head.

As a blue blade erupted from the end, Denva realized that Karis had Jorak's lightsaber. "_NO!_" she yelled, diving for the Clawdite and pushing her out of the way just as Karis brought the blade down into Denva's side. The Mandalorian screamed in anticipation of the searing pain that—didn't come. Instead, all she felt was a vague tingling, and a look of giddy surprise came over her face. Of _course_ Jorak still had his lightsaber on a lower power setting.

Karis was equally confused by the outcome of the attack, which gave Denva just enough time to punch her across the face, sending her sprawling unconscious on the floor. This time, the Mandalorian wasted no time in pulling a length of rope out of her hip pouch and binding the woman hand and foot, and then fastening her to the leg of a nearby table. Having done that, Denva rushed to Jorak's side and pulled him up to a sitting position, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "Jor, you idiot!" she said fiercely, tears coming to her eyes. "You saved my life!"

"And you saved mine!" the Zabrak replied, looking confused and tired, but happy. "I honestly didn't think you would come, she was going to drink my soup!"

"She was gonna _what?_" Tyd asked, coming over to the couch, still in her gremlinesque form.

"She an Anzat," Jorak explained from over Denva's shoulder. "It's…what they do." The Clawdite gave Karis a disgusted look.

Denva finally pulled away from him to look him up and down. "She didn't hurt you, did she? Are you sick?"

"No…well, sort of. She gave me sedatives…I can't even use the Force right now," Jorak explained sheepishly, laying his head on the back of the couch. "It was worse before, I think it's wearing off. I don't know what I would have done without you."

"Jorak, I'm really, I'm so sorry about everything," Denva apologized. "About the way I've been treating you. It was wrong, _I_ was wrong, I'm sorry." She hung her head. "I understand if you don't want to be friends after this."

He reached over with great effort and patted her shoulder, which turned into pulling her into another hug. "I forgive you. I feel like this was mostly my fault, anyway. I shouldn't have lost my temper."

"I should have told you why I was so afraid of your lightsaber."

"You were? I noticed you got skittish every time I used it but I thought maybe you just hadn't seen one before or something."

"I have…" She reached down and massaged her side gently; already the feeling was coming back, but the memory of lightsaber-inflicted pain past was ebbing more slowly.

"…And you ignored that to save me," Tyd said, looking up at Denva in awe. "Thank you, Denva. You're the best."

The Mandalorian smiled down at the child. "I would have gone through that pain again for you, _ad'ika_. Hey, my _Crimson Orar_ needs a co-pilot. What do you say? There's plenty more to see in the galaxy than this dump, you know!"

Tyd's eyes lit up as she morphed back to her natural form, unable to concentrate on keeping up the disguise. "Can I, really?!" She began jumping up and down with glee. "I'll be the best co-pilot ever, I promise!"

"Yeah, you'd better keep that promise!" Denva teased, gently poking Tyd's bald head. "I don't want another systems lockdown 'coz of you, got it?"

Tyd laughed in embarrassment. "At least Hiru can fix it!"

"Speaking of…" Denva turned toward the Cathar, who was bent intently over the console. "How's it going?"

"Pretty well," Hiru murmured, not looking up and obviously immersed in her work. "I've locked down this entire level, there's no way anyone's getting in here. I've also disabled all defense systems in the building and…" She tapped a screen with finality. "Locked down everything, now. No one's getting in or out."

"Awesome." Denva left Jorak's side and strode over to the displays. "Is there any way you can open communication with the entire city?"

"I believe so," Hiru muttered, bringing up a couple of menus and scrolling through them, her ears flicking as her eyes rapidly scanned the information contained therein. She seemed utterly in her element. "Yes, here we are. It seems that all of Last Gambit shares a common communications network." She grinned. "You should be able to reach everyone in the city with this."

"Put me on the air." Denva slid her helmet back on and leaned over the console.

"You're on." Hiru went back to tinkering at another screen.

The Mandalorian cleared her throat. "Attention, you slimy scumbag citizens of Last Gambit," she barked. "The gig is up, your game is over. I've taken your benevolent patroness out of the picture. Zursj is no more, and the planetary police will be arriving shortly to arrest each. And every. One of you." She pressed the mute button and looked over at Hiru. "Contact the H'rrath Police and send them all of the data in this system. There's probably a list in here of the Zursj agents who are doubling as government workers."

"Right." The Cathar nodded. Her fingers flew and her smirk widened. "Let them know they can't escape."

"Escape is futile," Denva continued. She looked back at Hiru. "Er, why?" she whispered.

The Cathar didn't bother to answer, but instead leaned over the microphone herself. "It was a terrible mistake to allow Ms. Due to connect all of the systems in this city through a single master network," she stated in a tone of quiet fierceness. "We now have control of your entire city. Access to landing pads is entirely locked down. In addition, your slaves' security chips have been disarmed. My sisters and brethren in bondage, you are now free." Her voice trembled with restrained jubilance.

"By the way," Denva chimed in, "we've got the Jedi Order in on this, too, so don't pull anything funny or they'll be all over your sorry hides." She looked over her shoulder at Jorak, who winked at her. "This is Denva Ladd, over and out."

"We're getting a transmission from the police." Hiru opened the communications line.

"Ladd, is that you?" Illix's familiar dark profile appeared on one of the monitors. "Unbelievable, you've stopped them already?"

"Oh, tell her about the assassination plot!" Jorak shouted, struggling to get off the couch; Tyd pulled him up and supported him on her shoulder, although that was almost comically impossible for her. "There are double agents that are going to stage a coup today!"

"Knight Zoon! Good to hear from you again! What are these files our computers are receiving?"

"They probably contain data on the coup," Denva filled in. "Extract it as soon as possible, and keep the governor safe! You're not quite out of hot water yet! Hiru, keep Illix on the line and answer any questions she has about the data." The Cathar nodded.

"I don't believe it…beaten by a mere Jedi and his oddball friends…" Karis moaned. "Jorak…why?"

The Zabrak turned and frowned at her. "Don't act like I was ever on your side, Karis. The only one who's betrayed you here is yourself. You can't guilt me into turning against my friends…even if they are oddballs. I'm pretty odd, myself."

"So, what should we do with you?" Denva asked, striding over to the Anzat and giving her a swift kick in the side. "I've never been more tempted to kill someone in my life."

Jorak held out an open hand to the Mandalorian, signaling for her to cease, and knelt down shakily in front of Karis, helped by Tyd. "Karis…I know you've made a lot of mistakes in the past, but I believe you can rise above that. Join us, please. I promise you'll find happiness. I know you're strong, and you have a lot of skills that can be used for good in the galaxy. You don't have to give up your idealism, but the galaxy isn't going to become a better place unless you work to make it that way."

The Anzat was pensive for a moment, looking down at the floor. "Why are you so willing to trust me? For all you know, I could attack you the moment you untie me."

"Because I know you have good in you." He smiled. "I believe in you. I want to be your friend."

"That's really corny," Karis complained, but she cracked a grin all the same—a genuine one. She looked up at him, her head still bowed. "You make a lot of big promises, Jedi."

"Yes, and I keep them."

"…Does my joining you mean you'll bail me out of my arrest?"

"Yes."

"What?!" Denva sputtered in protest. "Jor, after all she's done she deserves to rot on Oovo IV!"

"Den, could you untie her, please?"

Denva was willing to overlook his forbidden use of her nickname in light of the situation, and she grumbled angry things in Mando'a as she began to undo the knots. "You try anything funny, you psycho, and I'll knock you into next Life Day," she warned the Anzat darkly. "You're not sleeping in the dorm, that's for sure."

"Yes, so nice to make your acquaintance, too," Karis snapped coldly. She shook out her wrists and ankles slowly as Denva coiled the rope and placed it back in her hip pouch, and the Mandalorian watched her warily as the Anzat rose to her feet. Jorak extended his hand to her, and she looked at him for a moment before clasping it and shaking it. "I didn't know Jedi believed in second chances."

"I'm sorry if you've ever met any who didn't."

"You sure you don't want us to take her into custody?" Illix asked Jorak and Denva. The group had convened on the _Crimson Orar_'s landing pad, much to the bemusement of the Sullustan proprietor (who was now in the process of being arrested himself). Illix was there with a few of her deputies; there was a constant stream of police craft flying in and out of the city now, bringing in reinforcements to put down the chaos within and transporting out criminals, freed slaves, and confiscated items. Standing opposite the captain of the police force were her hired mercenary, her Jedi Knight, their two new friends, and the former queen of a budding criminal empire.

"She's turned over a new leaf," Jorak assured Illix. "She'll be traveling with Denva and I back to Yavin IV."

"Ah, are you sure that's safe?" Denva asked, her body language skeptical. She didn't like the idea of an Anzat running amok on a moon full of Jedi.

"I've lost my appetite for Force-users," Karis confessed, folding her arms. "I don't know what I'll drink now, but…I've gone for longer without food before."

"I'm sure we can figure something out," Jorak said, patting her shoulder.

"Zoon, Ladd, I feel like I can't thank you enough," Illix sighed. "You two are the planet's heroes. Ladd, you'll be getting a big, fat bonus to your account."

"Excellent." Denva rubbed her hands together.

"I'm just sorry we don't have any way of rewarding you, Zoon. Are you sure you don't want any money?"

Jorak bowed. "Please, Captain. As a Jedi Knight, my only reward is a job well done, and peace brought to the galaxy." Karis rolled her eyes.

"You deserve thanks as well, Hiru and Tyd," Illix rumbled, turning to the Cathar and Clawdite. "They couldn't have done this without you. Is there anything we can do for the both of you?"

"All I ask is that you give the former slaves a good home," Hiru requested.

"A spaceship!" Tyd proclaimed, but a sidewise glance from Denva quieted her down. "I mean, I'm good. Actually, I think maybe I'm not the only one who was orphaned by Zursj. I'd like if all of the other orphans found homes." She looked over at Denva. "I still get some of that bonus, right?"

"Maybe," the Mandalorian answered dryly.

"We can do that," Illix replied.

"I can test everyone for Force sensitivity," Jorak offered. "Then they could come live at the praxeum if they wanted. Master Skywalker is always looking for new recruits."

"Sounds reasonable," the Defel agreed.

"Hiru! Hiru!" A gaggle of juvenile voices called out the Cathar's name, and Hiru turned to see a group of children swarm her, clamoring for her attention. "Hiru, you set us free!" a simian Kordan girl exclaimed, clinging to Hiru's legs with her thick arms.

"You're our hero!" a Twi'lek boy shouted, his _lekku_ getting tangled around his flailing arms.

Hiru knelt down in the midst of them and gathered them in for a group hug. "I am so glad to see you finally free, my young friends. Do not worry, your lives from now on will be your own."

"Cute," Denva muttered, smiling underneath her helmet.

She noticed that Karis had a strange look on her face; Jorak had seen it as well and he placed a hand on the Anzat's shoulder. "It is quite heartwarming," he mused.

"I had no idea they were importing child slaves," Karis said quietly. "I never should have allowed this to happen. I'm sorry."

"Ah well, it's over now," Denva reminded her. "Don't worry, from now on, you're sticking with us."

"Yes, that's what worries me," Karis replied flatly, although her dark eyes were smiling.

"Well, if that's that, I suppose we should be on our way," Jorak smiled to the captain, motioning for everyone else to join him up the gangplank of the ship.

"Give Master Skywalker our thanks," Illix called to him with a bow. "His sending you here averted a lot of disaster."

"Of course," the Zabrak beamed.

"Well, Jor," Denva chuckled, giving him a playful punch on the arm as they entered the ship. The _Orar_ seemed so quiet compared to the chaos and cleanup of the past few hours. It seemed like such a relief, but Denva knew after only a day or so of relaxing she'd get the itch for another job. At any rate, she still had plenty on her plate dropping Jorak off on Yavin IV and taking Hiru to Abregado-Rae, and giving her new co-pilot some flight training.

"Yes?" Jorak asked; he had begun to give Karis a tour of the ship but now he turned to face Denva, much to the Anzat's displeasure.

For the first time, Denva couldn't really think of anything to say as she put her hands on her hips contemplatively. "Well…well done," she decided with a nod.

"Me? I didn't really do much of anything." The Zabrak scratched the back of his neck and looked aside. "Besides become the Jedi-in-distress."

"Hey, cut yourself some slack. You did great for your first mission. You didn't die, right?"

He smiled sheepishly. "Yeah…"

"And we set out to accomplish what we said we would do, didn't we?" she continued.

His smile widened. "Yes. Yes, we did. You're right, that's what's important. But I learned a lot on this mission, a lot about my weaknesses and limitations. When I get back to the praxeum I'm going to train twice as hard, now that I know what I have to train in."

Jorak began to turn away again, but Denva caught his arm and swiveled him back. "Hey, Jor. If you ever need my help on a mission, or, you know, you have some free time and you want to hang out, give me a call. I'll give you this ship's comm frequency."

"I'm glad I met you, Denva." He reached for her hand and she clasped it fiercely.

"Feeling's mutual, Jor. Let's get you back home, _ner vod_. I'm looking forward to having more adventures with you."

"Same here."

Jorak lay awake in his bunk, listening to the lulling hum of the engines as the _Orar_ sped through hyperspace, bringing him back to his jungle moon. It felt like ages since he'd left; he wasn't really looking forward to having to share a room again no matter how good of a roommate Kam was. But the promise of familiarity and old friends cancelled out that minor annoyance.

Denva was right, he thought. Although the mission hadn't exactly gone as planned, although he hadn't flawlessly and gracefully moved toward his objectives as he had hoped, the conflict had been resolved and he'd made three, no, four friends. And he and Denva had helped each other heal from hurts both past and new. He thought he could count his first mission as a success when he contacted Luke tomorrow. With that satisfaction lingering in his mind, he turned over and curled up, letting himself drift into sleep.

End


End file.
